The Sinclair QL Forum

Crud3 wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 11:50 pm I have way to many Sinclair QL's to be considered sane but...

Do they all work? I see a heat sink next to one...maybe it's the one missing from my spare one

Dave wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:51 am Let’s add to this family picture.

After some refurbishing and other hands-on work both the Thor...



...and the Sandy works too!



Also, the gang of QL's all work as intended, with the exception of the odd Microdrive unit here and there!

bwinkel67 wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 8:02 am Do they all work? I see a heat sink next to one...maybe it's the one missing from my spare one

Yes they all work fine! The odd Microdrive may not want to play nice but I have swapped units around so that they all at least have a working primary drive in them...
One or two of the QL's also had interesting mods made to them like the one with the externally mounted voltage regulator. One of the others had the BT style connectors for the RS232 ports replaced with standard 9-pin ones!

Crud3 wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 9:33 am ...and the Sandy works too!

Oh that's an LED on the front panel. I seem to have 3 holes on my front panel, at least I now know what one of them is for.

Re my Sandy k/b interface: I discovered a broken connection on the thin PCB that plugs into the QL k/b connectors and was thrilled that it might of solved it. It didn't, it's exactly the same as before. The only thing left to do now is to remove and replace the original connectors on the QL m/b.

Good news though - my SQB Floppy board seems to work (that had 9v put through it killing its RAM daughter board previously). With extra power on the bus extender, it boots up happily and shows: Sandy Disk Controller V1.19N and CARE / QJUMP Toolkit V2.10. Haven't actually attached a floppy drive to it yet.

Crud3 wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 9:36 am One or two of the QL's also had interesting mods made to them like the one with the externally mounted voltage regulator. One of the others had the BT style connectors for the RS232 ports replaced with standard 9-pin ones!

Mine is the US version where all 4 are DB-9's: 2 male and 2 female. It wasn't until years later that I realized there were other types of connectors :-/

Hi fellowQL'ers

Long time ago, I bought what I thought to be a QXT640, but it turned out to be a QL dressed up in a Spem box. I bought it from a member, Sohail Bahtti. It survived the travel from UK to Denmark. I just had to plug it in and connected to my monitor, 1084. The only thing I have done, is adding a Qubide and HD, at the moment I am programming a Minerva + TK2 eprom.
I hope you all are well.
Take care.
Regards
Klaus

Sorry, I don't know what happend to my pictures.
Klaus

Spem clearly worked with/supplied Sandy in some capacity and that machine certainly bears a striking resemblance to a QXT640.

By the way... if ever you need replacement keyswitches for the SPEM QL Keyboard, they are made by Futaba and you can get new ones, here:

https://www.pollin.de/p/futaba-eingabet ... f-n-421526

Or, upgrade to clicky type switches:

https://www.pollin.de/p/futaba-eingabet ... tch-420905

klausfrank wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:26 pm

I'm just wondering why you have a ribbon cable, but CHR$ an XT connector for the keyboard. Are these different keyboards?

RalfR wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 7:03 pm

klausfrank wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:26 pm

I'm just wondering why you have a ribbon cable, but CHR$ an XT connector for the keyboard. Are these different keyboards?

Yes, different keyboards Ralf. The SPEM one fits in the normal QL connectors and requires no further hardware, which makes it very practical.