The Sinclair QL Forum

As Peter has posted , it's an impressive achievement. Which FPGA did you use to build this card?

Hi, it's an Intel Cyclone 10LP, 10CL010YE144I7G

lliont wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 11:16 am Yes Peter I can do that, I thought a similar process, the fpga to initialy copy the rom contents to ram and then make this ram write protected and then start the system.
I have used this aproach in another core but now I have used even the last logic gate and I must find a way to squeeze this in the fpga.

It is not required to squeeze the initial copying into the FPGA - just the few gates/register needed for the shadowing itself.
With the mentioned infrastructure in place, the system will boot as before.
One can then, at any later time, run a little routine (with interrupts switched off) to do the memcopy.
Or even extend it to a SOFTROM function known from QDOS Classic for Q40/Q60.

lliont wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:09 pm On the other hand even if I do nothing more it is fast enough already.

Matter of taste... I know someone on our forum, who finds even this machine too slow: Q-Top Index for Q60 @ 80 MHz

It is slow for crypto mining

lliont wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 4:20 pm It is slow for crypto mining

Peter wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 3:07 pm

lliont wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:09 pm On the other hand even if I do nothing more it is fast enough already.

Matter of taste... I know someone on our forum, who finds even this machine too slow:
<>

Only one? Im surprised.

I quite like this, though: Shame about that pesky Linux which keeps inserting itself where it has no business. Press the "wrong" key and you either "lose" the emulator or it gets killed off without a squeak. Otherwise it would be a good alternative to an emulator on Windows.
A pity also, that that we cant make use of that speedy silicon to make an all-QL system.

lliont, Awesome!

BTW, now with a 68000 and 4 MB, could SMSQe run?

Unfortunately no, I also wish I could make it able to boot smsq maybe by emulating gold card (like Marcel did) or something but haven't explore the possibilities and I lack the experience, I'm new to QL system software, I know just basic stuff and didn't have the time to explore the smsq.

I thought SMSQ/E could be loaded at RAM address 030000 (after the "dual screens" effectively), but I am not sure if it makes any assumptions about memory layout lower down in the memory map. It does reserve some areas where the GOLD card has it's I/O