A seat in the lifeboat
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 4:19 pm
Hi,
since the turn of the century, I invested a lot of time into some QL
hardware and software projects. Except the Q60 Graphics Card, all of
them actually worked, and have been shown to a few friends.
I didn't have the motivation to finish them. For a long time, the reason
was that I saw the requirement for a free QL operating system first. I
spent time on that area, trying to help others who had a similar goal.
But we did noch achieve a breakthrough, and my other projects suffered.
Life has changed, time has become even shorter nowadays. It is
absolutely unrealistic that all my projects can be released someday. But
maybe I can rescue at least *one* of them, before all work is lost forever.
Everything related to my Coldfire based Q60 successor makes no sense
anymore. The point was high speed, but today's PCs are so fast that
emulation beats it. Here are those projects which might still
have relevance:
* QLwIP: QL native TCP/IP support, and some applications for it like
email, webserver, browser etc.
* QLPUI: A modern GUI for QDOS, with themes and proportional fonts. Runs
on native hardware and on emulators. A simple demo can be found at
http://terdina.net/ql/software.html
* Q60 Graphics Card: Flatscreen monitor support and other improvements
for the Q60
* QLMMC: An SD/MMC card adaptor for the parallel port of Q60 and
SuperGoldCard, easy to plug in, but speed only similar to floppy
* QLSD: Internal SDHC card "harddisk" for the original QL, using the
microdrive slots
* Q68: Native QL computer on a 8x10 cm board, flatscreen support, SDHC
cards, sound, SER, ethernet. CPU is within an FPGA chip. Runs both QDOS
Classic and Minerva. The operating systems themselves seem to work
allright by now, also Basic and some programs. Other programs might
never work, I suspect further bugs in the CPU.
Which project deserves a seat in the lifeboat? Which one would *you*
prefer to see finished - even if it comes with limitations?
All the best
Peter
since the turn of the century, I invested a lot of time into some QL
hardware and software projects. Except the Q60 Graphics Card, all of
them actually worked, and have been shown to a few friends.
I didn't have the motivation to finish them. For a long time, the reason
was that I saw the requirement for a free QL operating system first. I
spent time on that area, trying to help others who had a similar goal.
But we did noch achieve a breakthrough, and my other projects suffered.
Life has changed, time has become even shorter nowadays. It is
absolutely unrealistic that all my projects can be released someday. But
maybe I can rescue at least *one* of them, before all work is lost forever.
Everything related to my Coldfire based Q60 successor makes no sense
anymore. The point was high speed, but today's PCs are so fast that
emulation beats it. Here are those projects which might still
have relevance:
* QLwIP: QL native TCP/IP support, and some applications for it like
email, webserver, browser etc.
* QLPUI: A modern GUI for QDOS, with themes and proportional fonts. Runs
on native hardware and on emulators. A simple demo can be found at
http://terdina.net/ql/software.html
* Q60 Graphics Card: Flatscreen monitor support and other improvements
for the Q60
* QLMMC: An SD/MMC card adaptor for the parallel port of Q60 and
SuperGoldCard, easy to plug in, but speed only similar to floppy
* QLSD: Internal SDHC card "harddisk" for the original QL, using the
microdrive slots
* Q68: Native QL computer on a 8x10 cm board, flatscreen support, SDHC
cards, sound, SER, ethernet. CPU is within an FPGA chip. Runs both QDOS
Classic and Minerva. The operating systems themselves seem to work
allright by now, also Basic and some programs. Other programs might
never work, I suspect further bugs in the CPU.
Which project deserves a seat in the lifeboat? Which one would *you*
prefer to see finished - even if it comes with limitations?
All the best
Peter