The Sinclair QL Forum

martyn_hill wrote: Sat Apr 05, 2025 12:42 pm Ooo! Intriguing project, Daniele!

Any comments to add???

Just playing around, I really like the price point of the Pico, especially now that it has wifi. I'm also interested in trying the PIO programming at some point, but it's not needed for the first project.
The board itself is just an interface to the QL ROM bus, could be used for anything that doesn't require the extra signals available on the side expansion, so no RAM expansion for example, but in theory it could run tcp/ip (no plans to do that myself, though), perhaps math acceleration, sound, MIDI, external keyboard, bluetooth devices, etc.

The first project I will attempt will be a wifi microdrive.
I've read about the OqtaDrive and it seems it already does wifi among so many other things, but it requires pairing it with a Pi Zero and can only work as MDV 3+ unless you use it to replace the internal microdrive. I assume it's also relatively slow as it goes through the ZX8302.
If that can be made to work, my next project could be a wifi ROM chooser. It would require very tight timing, though, and the Pico to start before the 68008, so not sure whether it's possible.

M68008 wrote: Sat Apr 05, 2025 6:23 pm I appreciate the advice, thank you! I'll change it in the next version, it's currently 0.4 mm.

Twice as wide would be better, also for the ground traces.
If you then keep the traces between decoupling capacitors an IC power pins short and wide, you should be okay even without ground plane.

M68008 wrote: Sat Apr 05, 2025 6:46 pm If that can be made to work, my next project could be a wifi ROM chooser. It would require very tight timing, though, and the Pico to start before the 68008, so not sure whether it's possible.

The Pico boots minimal code in almost 200 msec after power-on, which is less than the reset times I have seen on my QLs.
How reliable that would be, is a different question.

Peter wrote: Sat Apr 05, 2025 7:19 pm The Pico boots minimal code in almost 200 msec after power-on, which is less than the reset times I have seen on my QLs.
How reliable that would be, is a different question.

Good to know as I have not measured the QL reset time, yet.
From some experiments with the Pico dev board and other projects I see around, I think feeding ROM data to the QL should be attainable.

XorA wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 3:45 pm Scratch that, if your an Administrator then DEVICE=FLP1,\\.\PhysicalDeviceX,qdos-native should work. replace X with the proper number for the floppy disk!

Tried it with PhysicalDevice0 / PhysicalDevice1 / PhysicalDeviceA and  PhysicalDevicea in the *.ini. Doesn't work. DIR A: in PowerShell (with a DOS Disk inserted) is working.

Oops: Just detected, FLP1_ now does no more work with QPC2. It seems I have a serious problem :‑(

ql_freak wrote: Sun Apr 06, 2025 1:49 am

XorA wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 3:45 pm Scratch that, if your an Administrator then DEVICE=FLP1,\\.\PhysicalDeviceX,qdos-native should work. replace X with the proper number for the floppy disk!

Tried it with PhysicalDevice0 / PhysicalDevice1 / PhysicalDeviceA and  PhysicalDevicea in the *.ini. Doesn't work. DIR A: in PowerShell (with a DOS Disk inserted) is working.

Oops: Just detected, FLP1_ now does no more work with QPC2. It seems I have a serious problem :‑(

Unfortunately the drive path is specific to your machine. And I am not a windows user so i cannot actually help you find it, your on your own there!

Mini-Tower with built in 31/2" Teac Floppy Disk Drive
Windows 7
DEVICE=FLP1,\\.\a:,qdos-native
Linux
DEVICE=FLP1,/dev/fd0,qdos-native

hope it helps

Markus

desin wrote: Sun Apr 06, 2025 11:33 amDEVICE=FLP1,\\.\a:,qdos-native

Ah, thank you, that was the solution.

Thanks to supporters idea for exchanging my software with their no-needed hardware
They say tbey help me to further devlop my future projects(!), sw vs hw and received:
Eagle recorder for zx48k, zx48k rom i/f 1 and zx48k chess cartridge!!!

Not QL related, but hobby related. I bought a new Blue Pill (I've had the BlueSCIS for over a year).

I was finally putting together my older BlueSCSI (the one that still actually uses a Blue Pill) and because of bad solder I had purchased from AliExpress, I broke my Blue Pill. Excessive heat and constantly trying to get the solder to stick caused the pads and traces to go and so I was faced with losing the entire board. Well, I cut the Blue Pill out carefully since I only have a solder sucker and my iron only goes up to 450 celcius, which wasn't enough. I then ordered a replacement for under $3 (with the ST-LINK, which I now need to add a boot loader). With an unexpected $2 off and free shipping since I got to $10 for adding proper solder and other stuff, the screw up ended up costing 75 cents.

Of course now I need to configure it with the BlueSCSI software. The kit I got from Joe's Computer Museum had done all that for me. Doesn't sound like the simplest, since you first have to load a variant of the boot loader (and there are many, dependent on how the LED on the Blue Pill is connected). Luckily I've seen some good YouTube tutorials that at least get you through that part. Here's hoping I don't screw that up.

I will definitely test the new solder to make sure it doesn't require 400+ degree celcius to melt (it's 0.8mm and says 183 degree for melting point). I'm not terrible at soldering, though struggle sometimes with small stuff (or being too OCD and spending too log on something), but that experience had me questioning if I was able to solder at all. The other solder had claimed it was low-temp and the few things I did with it didn't make me question that, but once there was a lot of ground plain and other things taking the heat away, it definitively behaved differently from what I expected.


[Edit: Btw, does the QL have a SCSI interface card? I like IDE better, and it's cheaper to get an IDE-to-SD interface, but curious if one was every created.]

bwinkel67 wrote: Thu Apr 10, 2025 9:26 pm [Edit: Btw, does the QL have a SCSI interface card? I like IDE better, and it's cheaper to get an IDE-to-SD interface, but curious if one was every created.]

Yes, at least CST sell a SCSI card, and the Thor computer also use a similar interface (AFAIK only compatible with one model of HDD and no more).
There is very small information of it on internet anyway.