The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi folks,

way back in the summer of 2018, while on my once-in-a-lifetime US road trip, I acquired a QL job lot from former Mechanical Affinity QL trader Paul Holmgren. This included some QL IC24 IPC 8049 chips with 2nd edition firmware version 1.2. Rare beasts made by NEC for Sinclair Research Ltd.

Over the years I've learnt that both Daniele and Marcel had managed to read 8049 chips.

In the summer of 2022 I visited Marcel and he read the firmware using his "Arduino Mega 2560 clone micro USB" and "MCS-48 (8748 / 8749 / 8741 / 8742 / 8048 / 8049 / 8050 / 8755) Programmer / Reader". He even analysed the differences to the 1st edition version 0.7.

It took me quite some time to prepare a package for release. It's out now!
https://sinclairql.net/repository.html#Firmware

Cheers,
Urs

Firmware readout of all Sinclair QL IPC 8049/8749 chips completed the other day in my King's Lab, including the ones from QL builders Steve and Jonathan. Special thanks to Marcel Kilgus for lending me his MCS-48 programmer. We now have preserved the following versions by Sinclair Reserach Ltd: 0.7, 1.2, 2.0, 3.19! See report on my YouTube Community Blog (link in message footer).

Hi Urs,

Good and very informative report.

It also reminded me of the MCS-48 programmer, I have some pcbs to make some programmers.