The Sinclair QL Forum

XorA wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 11:43 am

pjw wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 11:35 am

Martin_Head wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 10:28 am
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On QPC2 SMSQ/E supports up to 255Mb, so its a mistake to suggest the restriction is on SMSQ/E

I though the issue was solely smsq/e issue. It requires memory to be contiguous, Q60 ram is in two blocks?

smsq/e is rare I think in needing RAM to be contiguous!

No, you mis-quote me, I mean SMSQ/E on Q60 with a hardware modification can support 64Mb

Martin_Head wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 11:29 am

RalfR wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 10:43 am

Martin_Head wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 10:28 amBut can you still get ISA multi I/O & Ethernet cards?

These cards can still be found on eBay, from EUR 5 to EUR 50.

I was thinking new rather than used. I think Derek said he liked to test that the cards worked with the Q60 before hand.

The policy of D&D Systems, which was to test all hardware before sending out to an customer use.

But if you want to buy computer hardware that has possible faults in operation, then, I should of called myself Q-BRANCH...

XorA wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 11:43 am I though the issue was solely smsq/e issue. It requires memory to be contiguous, Q60 ram is in two blocks?

Four chunks of almost 32 MB. The address decoding was incomplete, mirroring 0..$27FFF every 32 MB. Linux supports chunked memory, so it could use the full 128 MB. SMSQ/E does not.

There had been an MMU hack for SMSQ/E by Richard Zidlicky, allowing 64 MB. Just found it by chance, I think it was never released.

Hi,

I used to fit SMSQ/E 2.98p, in ROM, with the patch to SMSQ/E, for the Q60.

I was only given the binary patched Q60 SMSQ/E. So donot know thd details of thd patch till now.

But once SMSQ/E v3.xx was issued, I starting supplying that in ROM, to v3.10, because after that the size of Q60 SMSQ/E was larger than the EPROM.

But this was solved by Wolgand Lenez, who added a compressed ROM system.

Derek_Stewart wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 4:39 pm I was only given the binary patched Q60 SMSQ/E. So donot know thd details of thd patch till now.

That was surely not intended. The patch was recently also posted in this forum: https://www.theqlforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=61582#p61582

Peter wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 11:04 pm

Derek_Stewart wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 4:39 pm I was only given the binary patched Q60 SMSQ/E. So donot know thd details of thd patch till now.

That was surely not intended. The patch was recently also posted in this forum: https://www.theqlforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=61582#p61582

It does not matter, now, 22 years ago is too long to consider the issues, which today are non-existant.

Everyone is friends, all information is freely open, no constant threat of legal action.

Just need to get the parts and make the new boards.

Hi Derek,

To predict the possible current level interest in Q60 boards are you able to say how many Q60 boards and systems D&D sold back in the day.
You have already stated that only one Q40i was sold.
I am only interested as I myself bought a Q60 back then, serial Q60-80-A6-003.

Cheers

Artificer wrote: Fri Feb 07, 2025 1:58 pm Hi Derek,

To predict the possible current level interest in Q60 boards are you able to say how many Q60 boards and systems D&D sold back in the day.
You have already stated that only one Q40i was sold.
I am only interested as I myself bought a Q60 back then, serial Q60-80-A6-003.

Cheers

Hi,

I checked my old Q60 records, there was 20 Q60, 1 Q40i systems sold. Seems not a lot considering the amount of work involved.

The Q60 was hand built and soak tested for 24 hours under load, using Shoestring Linux, so that all the 128Mb ram could be used.

The construction of the Q60 uses Through Hole Components, with hundreds of soldered connection required and does not really lend itself to automated PCBA procedures.

Any new boards, will have to be hand built, which is fine for 1 or 2 boards, but construction of more than 5 boards, needs a lot of attention to detail. 20 years on the temperature controlled soldering equipment is available, better solder and fluxes. So the manual soldering of hundreds of joints by hand does take a lot of concentration. There were some procedure checks built into the D&D Systems construction to avoid construction failure.

I do not ask anyone to take this task on, as the quality of the soldered joints are critical to the construction, as is the quality of the components. But on saying that we had no failures on construction.

Hi derek,

My proposal:

- 68060 cpu, 60Mhz, MMU
- 1024 rom, flashable, we are testing os
- 128 ram, continuous
- hard disk, we are testing file systems
- floppy disks
- other items upon you and users needs

I will take two, if the 1st one will operate properly!

Regards,
ansar

ansar wrote: Sat Feb 08, 2025 4:48 pm Hi derek,

My proposal:

- 68060 cpu, 60Mhz, MMU
- 1024 rom, flashable, we are testing os
- 128 ram, continuous
- hard disk, we are testing file systems
- floppy disks
- other items upon you and users needs

I will take two, if the 1st one will operate properly!

Regards,
ansar

I think mentioned previously, this is not a sales message thread.

I have much work to do in other areas, so no orders or wishlists are being taken.