The Sinclair QL Forum

Chr$ wrote: Urs would have also given it a good home, so sorry you missed out this time Urs.

Yes, definitely. But all good, you'll take good care of it.

Can I just say, failure to submit a detailed plan with measurements etc, will result in a good shoeing

vanpeebles wrote:Can I just say, failure to submit a detailed plan with measurements etc, will result in a good shoeing

Obviously.

I would also post glorious large pics on the wiki, but that's broken for pics (is it just me?) and is a bit frustrating. Yes, I know I could ask Rob instead of moaning about it in public, like Victor Meldrew.

I received the factory test jig from passat20se today and immediately got to work cleaning it up, dumping the ROM contents (it’s the same as the syscomp v1.1 that Urs made available a couple of years ago), retrobrighting the buttons… I’m missing one, so if anyone knows what type/make of mid 80s button they may be, please let me know.

Here are some details:

The main metal jig construction is made of five pieces of aluminium, all of which are engraved or stamped with the number ‘12’. The main aluminium assembly is 17cm x 7.5cm (or about 10cm if you include the protruding SER/CTL plugs). The complete aluminium assembly weighs 390 grammes. It has a convenient recess to aid unplugging the whole thing in one go and features two labels – one is a black ‘Property of SINCLAIR’ with their Willis Road address. The other white label has ‘QL 224/15’ in faded red ink written on it. There is also a small round yellow sticker, the kind I have seen on many Sinclair computers and products over the years (anyone know exactly what that indicates? I have an Interface 1 sitting here with the same small sticker).

Bolted to the metal assembly on the left is a standard QL dongle/kludge made of two pieces of vacuum formed black plastic (it was once glued but was no longer held together). The label on top of it has ‘UNITEST’, which has been crossed out, followed by ‘syscomp v1.1’. The kludge contains a 27128 EPROM, also labelled ‘syscomp v1.1’. The two plugs for the SER connectors are looped to each other. The two plugs that go into the CTL ports have approx. 50cm leads on them that terminate in a grey box.

The grey box is approx. 11x6x3cm. Perhaps a commonly available hobby project box at the time. It features 2x rows of five buttons (or would, if one wasn’t missing) – next to the top row on both sides is a hand engraved ‘J3’ and next to the bottom row is ‘J4’ (whatever that may refer to?). The lower long side of the box is hand engraved with ‘QL 222/35’. The buttons are obviously connected to the joystick/cursor functions: up-arrow, down-arrow, left-arrow, right-arrow, space bar and F1 to F5.

When plugged into a QL it shows a message on boot and then after pressing F1 or F2 it takes a while to get going – I thought it had locked up at first, but then it gets straight into it, running the SuperBasic program that is contained on the Eprom. It all seems to work perfectly but I aborted at the mdv drive test as I didn’t have any blank carts immediately to hand.

It is absolutely one of my most prized possessions now, so thank-you passat20se and I’m so pleased I was in the right place at the right time and was able to obtain it.
Any QL’s I sell from now on I can boast that they have been tested with an original Sinclair factory test jig!

Some pictures:

Chr$ wrote:hand engraved ‘J3’ and next to the bottom row is ‘J4’ (whatever that may refer to?)

The QL joystick connectors are named J3 and J4.

M68008 wrote:

Chr$ wrote:hand engraved ‘J3’ and next to the bottom row is ‘J4’ (whatever that may refer to?)

The QL joystick connectors are named J3 and J4.

Ah, ok, simple as that!

Chr$ wrote: retrobrighting the buttons… I’m missing one, so if anyone knows what type/make of mid 80s button they may be, please let me know.

The buttons look like the ones that came with a ZX81 keyboard kit I had. There was a clear top which clipped onto the top of the key, and you could place a piece of paper under it for the key function.

I think Maplins used to sell them along with the switches that would solder directly onto a PCB.

Hi Chris you have done a nice job of cleaning without removing its originality.
I Am glad you are happy with the item, it was one of my favourite prized Sinclair finds for many years but recently I have turned to having usable examples of the various hardware.
I am sure you will get more use and pleasure out of it!

Peter - Passat20se

Martin_Head wrote: I think Maplins used to sell them along with the switches that would solder directly onto a PCB.

There is a ZX81 with custom k/b on ebay that looks like it has the same switches, but he wants silly money for it. I'll find some spares one day.

passat20se wrote:Hi Chris you have done a nice job of cleaning without removing its originality.
I Am glad you are happy with the item, it was one of my favourite prized Sinclair finds for many years but recently I have turned to having usable examples of the various hardware.
I am sure you will get more use and pleasure out of it!

Peter - Passat20se

Thanks Peter.

Chr$ wrote:

Martin_Head wrote: I think Maplins used to sell them along with the switches that would solder directly onto a PCB.

There is a ZX81 with custom k/b on ebay that looks like it has the same switches, but he wants silly money for it. I'll find some spares one day.

I found the Maplin instructions for building a ZX81 keyboard. The keys part number was FF61R, and the key top is FF62S. If you can find someone who has an old Maplin catalogue, you might get a makers name