The Sinclair QL Forum

bwinkel67 wrote: Thu May 01, 2025 4:56 am

techfury wrote: Wed Apr 30, 2025 8:24 pm Kind of reminds me of a NEC FD1139T as well, except the NEC doesn't have the stepper motor on the back. (Used linear voice coil, no really.)

I also found the Canon MD3661 which similarly seems to be a 4"x4" drive.

Does anyone know what sort of interface these laptop floppies use? Is the only difference just a different ribbon cable but otherwise follows the floppy standard? Just want to know if, with the right connector my Kempston Disk Interface could run it. I think someone was working on a clone disk interface. Would be fun to see if you could mount that drive on a board with the interface hardware and slide it into the expansion slot.

Most actually will use the same "electrical interface", but different cables and pinouts. There are adapters that convert one to the other.

I just came across this FPGA project laptop. For only $200 you have a nice laptop platform, now all you need is the skill to program an FPGA. But a QL laptop would be pretty nice.

https://www.tindie.com/products/cycle/o ... -platform/

The Q68 found be put I yo this sort thing just need a VGA to TFT Screen adapter.

I was going to this in a an old HP laptop, but thought there would be much demand for this type of thing...

Hi Derek,

Derek_Stewart wrote: Mon Jul 14, 2025 4:27 pm The Q68 found be put I yo this sort thing just need a VGA to TFT Screen adapter.

I was going to this in a an old HP laptop, but thought there would be much demand for this type of thing...

I think the autocorrect screwed up your text as I wasn't fully able to discern what you were trying to say here. My best guess is

"The Q68 could be put into this sort of thing, just need a VGA to TFT screen adapter. I was going to try this with an old HP laptop..."

If so, sure, but this is a platform that gives you that plus an integrated screen and keyboard, plus other IO and it's already put together and the whole thing costs under $200 without requiring fabrication (i.e. this includes the FPGA). This seems ridiculously cheap compared to existing FPGA solutions that either just give you a board, or one embedded with a keyboard -- here you have a fully portable laptop that can do similar things (caveat, I don't know the internal FPGA used here compared to other projects like the Next, etc. But it does seem like an interesting platform.

Hi,

Sorry, for the bad grammatical errors in my last message. I should not enter messages on mmy mobile phone. A case of big fingers and little screen keyboard.

But I intended to say, I had a HP 14" Laptop, that I have a VGA to TFT screen adapter, so the Q68 could display to the Laptop TFT screen.

The keyboard and Mouse Track pad, were supposed to be PS/2, I will have to revisit this project.

Derek_Stewart wrote: Mon Jul 14, 2025 11:44 pm Sorry, for the bad grammatical errors in my last message. I should not enter messages on mmy mobile phone. A case of big fingers and little screen keyboard.

No worries. I've given up trying to thumb things into my phone :-/

Derek_Stewart wrote: Mon Jul 14, 2025 11:44 pm But I intended to say, I had a HP 14" Laptop, that I have a VGA to TFT screen adapter, so the Q68 could display to the Laptop TFT screen.

The keyboard and Mouse Track pad, were supposed to be PS/2, I will have to revisit this project.

That would be an interesting laptop.

Btw, what I like about this FPGA project laptop is that its look isn't too far from the QL look: black, with square lines. If someone created a badge for it, that could look pretty cool.