Rich Mellor wrote: 

> 
> On 03/02/2011 12:49, Dilwyn Jones wrote:
> >> It was followed by FB which may never have left the 
> factory - we know 
> >> that Psion had to alter their boot programs to cope with the 
> >> difference in the AT command in the FB ROM compared to 
> later QL ROMs 
> >> (they didn't bother checking for the earlier PM ROM).  No-one else 
> >> had to make this change or ever use it, so it looks as 
> though by the 
> >> time the public got their hands on the QL, the operating 
> system was 
> >> at least AH (which was soon followed by JM, JS and MG ROMs).
> > I'm pretty sure I had an FB machine when they came out, as 
> I remember 
> > the AT x,y problem quite clearly .
> >
> > Also, as I didn't find out about version PM until many 
> years later (I 
> > remember Simon explaining about it), I'm sure it must have been 
> > version FB ROM which I had. That QL got returned within 
> weeks for an 
> > update, but I don't know if the machine which came back was 
> the same 
> > one as I first had, or a different computer.
> >
> > So, assuming that the old DJ memory chips are working correctly and 
> > I'm correct, FB must have been issued to some early customers.
> >
> >
>
> I guess some customers did have the FB ROMs - (interesting)
> 
> The odd thing is that only the main 4 Psion packages ever 
> made allowance for the difference in the AT command - 
> presumably no-one else ever raised this with an issue with 
> software producers, as all the machines were returned to Sinclair.
> 
> Turbo and Q-liberator would have fun compiling the AT command 
> if it was written on the FB ROM !
> 

I'd always understood the order to be FB, PM, AH, JM, JS, MGx; I think I
read that in an early edition of QL User. PM was supposedly never released.
FB allegedly stood for "Full of Bugs", AH for "Angela's Holiday". Not sure
about the others... 

I had an AH QL (s/n D06 IIRC) from new in about June or July 1984, if my
beer-addled memory serves me correctly. Sadly, one of the soldered-on chips
on the AH board has given up the ghost (which had some hand-soldered
modifications), but the AH chips live on in another, newer, board. 

Cheers!
Ade.


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