Re: [Ql-Users] 16th Italian Sinclair QL meeting (virtual) - Report

[François Van Emelen via Ql-Users]

Op 14/04/2020 om 1:00 schreef Davide Santachiara via Ql-Users:

16° Meeting Sinclair QL Italiano – 5th of April 2020


Thanks for the feedback.

François Van Emelen


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Re: [Ql-Users] 16th Italian Sinclair QL meeting (virtual) - Report

[Renato Barigazzi via Ql-Users]

Grazie Davide
E' stato un bellissimo evento e ben organizzato. Spero che ce ne saranno 
altri.

Buona giornata
Renato

-Messaggio originale- 
From: Davide Santachiara via Ql-Users

Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2020 1:00 AM
To: ql-us...@q-v-d.com
Cc: Davide Santachiara
Subject: [Ql-Users] 16th Italian Sinclair QL meeting (virtual) - Report

16° Meeting Sinclair QL Italiano – 5th of April 2020

The 16° Sinclair QL should have been held in Modena as it has been the case
since 2008. Unfortunately, due to the restriction enforced following the
Covid-spread 19 we had to meet on the virtual teleconferencing platform
Jitsi. Twenty people have attended the teleconference including Marcel
Kilgus, Dilwyn Jones and Urs Keonig as welcome international guests.

Marcel, as also happened in the last two QL Italian meetings, had many
interesting news to report. Guest star was the new RGB-VGA interface for
Sinclair QL. This is yet another very useful piece of hardware to keep the
original QL alive at the time were only SVGA interfaces are available in
modern monitors. The prototype is almost finished and the image quality is
outstanding, everything is managed by a FPGA which scans the RGB signal and
transform it into a VGA signal. All the details can be found on
<https://www.kilgus.net/2020/01/08/ql-vga-the-second/>
https://www.kilgus.net/2020/01/08/ql-vga-the-second/ An Italian QL user
living in Toronto since many years, Michele Perini, is designing a QL style
case to be realized with 3D print technology.

The second news was that the excellent QL-SD interface card will not be any
more realized due to the effort at Marcel’s side needed to solder and
integrate the boards. That’s a pity, but do not despair as a new replacement
named QL-SD ROM is already in the pipeline. This board will connect to the
QL ROM port. The nice plus is that the new QL-SD ROM will have an onboard
flash ram capable to keep up to 8 QL ROMs which can be loaded and selected
with simple SuperBasic commands.
https://www.kilgus.net/2020/03/28/ql-sd-rom-the-early-days/

As side activity Marcel is also working in the port of SMSQ/E for the MiSTer
platform. MiSTer is a hardware platform capable to emulate most of the
“retro-computers”. You can find the Sinclair QL port on
<https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/QL_MiSTer>
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/QL_MiSTer while a MiSTer description is
given at this link  <https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki>
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

One of the possible future ideas which were mentioned by Marcel is the QL
port on the Spectrum Next  <https://www.specnext.com/>
https://www.specnext.com/ which has been shown “live” by Massimo Boccardi,
one of the few guys who managed to buy one. One of the nice things about the
Spectrum Next is that the case has been designed by the same designer of the
Sinclair QL case.

Another nice video contribution was an original Sinclair QL connected to an
internet connection with this serial-ethernet interface
<https://www.simulant.uk/shop/retro-vintage-computer-wifi-modem-rs232-serial
-hayes-compatible>
https://www.simulant.uk/shop/retro-vintage-computer-wifi-modem-rs232-serial-
hayes-compatible as well as V-Drive with a case made with SLS 3D printing
technology. The case was almost identical to the original Sinclair QL one.

Dilwyn Jones has shown his QL-IRC program. QL-IRC is written in structured
Super Basic (by Tim Swenson) and allows to any QL platform allowing to have
a TCP/IP connection like QPC2 to an IRC server (like e.g. the one hosted by
QLForum https://qlforum.co.uk/)

During Dilwyn’s presentation I noticed QL IRC was running on QPC 4.99 so I
could not resist to ask whether this was an error or a special version
developed on purpose for QL IRC. Actually, Marcel forgot that he almost
completed the work on QPC 5 which is a version almost completely re-written
in C a part for the core. There are many advantages vs QPC 4 like full
Direct-X 11 support, an improved floppy driver and capability to save header
information on DOS files. Only minor drawback is that it will not run
anymore on Windows 95.

Last presentation was made by Giorgio Garabello who has shown the latest
developments of his Black Phoenix platform
http://www.hunggartorino.it/ql/black-phoenix-en/ Most of the efforts have
been spent on a new sophisticated file manager called Quantum Explorer which
will be available in the next release. Roberto Porro in parallel has shown
the ongoing development work in the routines to allow image processing also
to be implemented in a new utility which will be part of Black Phoenix.

I hope I did not forget any of the very interesting information exchanged
during this virtual meeting, two hours and a half has flown and our wish has
been to organize a similar virtual event not far in the future. This was
however not new for us as since 2014 during our physical QL Italian meeting
we always organized videoconferencing sessions 

Re: [Ql-Users] 16th Italian Sinclair QL meeting (virtual) - Report

[Dilwyn (gmail) via Ql-Users]

Fabrizio Diversi wrote:


Thank you Davide,

I enjoy a lot during the meeting for the news, for the possibility to view 
people and new devices directly in their environment. Some light in this 
difficult period is needed.


It is an event to replicate soon, maybe also at international level.

Fabrizio

Indeed Fabrizio.

And a special thank you to Davide for doing the translation for those of us 
who do not speak Italian.


Dilwyn 


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Re: [Ql-Users] 16th Italian Sinclair QL meeting (virtual) - Report

[Fabrizio Diversi via Ql-Users]

Thank you Davide,

I enjoy a lot during the meeting for the news, for the possibility to 
view people and new devices directly in their environment. Some light in 
this difficult period is needed.


It is an event to replicate soon, maybe also at international level.

Fabrizio

On 14/04/2020 01:00, Davide Santachiara via Ql-Users wrote:

16° Meeting Sinclair QL Italiano – 5th of April 2020

The 16° Sinclair QL should have been held in Modena as it has been the case
since 2008. Unfortunately, due to the restriction enforced following the
Covid-spread 19 we had to meet on the virtual teleconferencing platform
Jitsi. Twenty people have attended the teleconference including Marcel
Kilgus, Dilwyn Jones and Urs Keonig as welcome international guests.

Marcel, as also happened in the last two QL Italian meetings, had many
interesting news to report. Guest star was the new RGB-VGA interface for
Sinclair QL. This is yet another very useful piece of hardware to keep the
original QL alive at the time were only SVGA interfaces are available in
modern monitors. The prototype is almost finished and the image quality is
outstanding, everything is managed by a FPGA which scans the RGB signal and
transform it into a VGA signal. All the details can be found on

https://www.kilgus.net/2020/01/08/ql-vga-the-second/ An Italian QL user
living in Toronto since many years, Michele Perini, is designing a QL style
case to be realized with 3D print technology.

The second news was that the excellent QL-SD interface card will not be any
more realized due to the effort at Marcel’s side needed to solder and
integrate the boards. That’s a pity, but do not despair as a new replacement
named QL-SD ROM is already in the pipeline. This board will connect to the
QL ROM port. The nice plus is that the new QL-SD ROM will have an onboard
flash ram capable to keep up to 8 QL ROMs which can be loaded and selected
with simple SuperBasic commands.
https://www.kilgus.net/2020/03/28/ql-sd-rom-the-early-days/

As side activity Marcel is also working in the port of SMSQ/E for the MiSTer
platform. MiSTer is a hardware platform capable to emulate most of the
“retro-computers”. You can find the Sinclair QL port on

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/QL_MiSTer while a MiSTer description is
given at this link  
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

One of the possible future ideas which were mentioned by Marcel is the QL
port on the Spectrum Next  
https://www.specnext.com/ which has been shown “live” by Massimo Boccardi,
one of the few guys who managed to buy one. One of the nice things about the
Spectrum Next is that the case has been designed by the same designer of the
Sinclair QL case.

Another nice video contribution was an original Sinclair QL connected to an
internet connection with this serial-ethernet interface

https://www.simulant.uk/shop/retro-vintage-computer-wifi-modem-rs232-serial-
hayes-compatible as well as V-Drive with a case made with SLS 3D printing
technology. The case was almost identical to the original Sinclair QL one.

Dilwyn Jones has shown his QL-IRC program. QL-IRC is written in structured
Super Basic (by Tim Swenson) and allows to any QL platform allowing to have
a TCP/IP connection like QPC2 to an IRC server (like e.g. the one hosted by
QLForum https://qlforum.co.uk/)

During Dilwyn’s presentation I noticed QL IRC was running on QPC 4.99 so I
could not resist to ask whether this was an error or a special version
developed on purpose for QL IRC. Actually, Marcel forgot that he almost
completed the work on QPC 5 which is a version almost completely re-written
in C a part for the core. There are many advantages vs QPC 4 like full
Direct-X 11 support, an improved floppy driver and capability to save header
information on DOS files. Only minor drawback is that it will not run
anymore on Windows 95.

Last presentation was made by Giorgio Garabello who has shown the latest
developments of his Black Phoenix platform
http://www.hunggartorino.it/ql/black-phoenix-en/ Most of the efforts have
been spent on a new sophisticated file manager called Quantum Explorer which
will be available in the next release. Roberto Porro in parallel has shown
the ongoing development work in the routines to allow image processing also
to be implemented in a new utility which will be part of Black Phoenix.

I hope I did not forget any of the very interesting information exchanged
during this virtual meeting, two hours and a half has flown and our wish has
been to organize a similar virtual event not far in the future. This was
however not new for us as since 2014 during our physical QL Italian meeting
we always organized videoconferencing sessions which allowed many people
from 

Re: [Ql-Users] 16th Italian Sinclair QL meeting (virtual) - Report

[Norman Dunbar via Ql-Users]

On 14/04/2020 00:00, Davide Santachiara via Ql-Users wrote:

16° Meeting Sinclair QL Italiano – 5th of April 2020

The 16° Sinclair QL should have been held in Modena as it has been the case
since 2008. Unfortunately, due to the restriction enforced following the
Covid-spread 19 we had to meet on the virtual teleconferencing platform
Jitsi. Twenty people have attended the teleconference including Marcel
Kilgus, Dilwyn Jones and Urs Keonig as welcome international guests.


Sounds incredible, and I flipping well missed it, work! Pah!


Cheers,
Norm.

--
Norman Dunbar
Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd

Registered address:
27a Lidget Hill
Pudsey
West Yorkshire
United Kingdom
LS28 7LG

Company Number: 05132767
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[Ql-Users] 16th Italian Sinclair QL meeting (virtual) - Report

[Davide Santachiara via Ql-Users]

16° Meeting Sinclair QL Italiano – 5th of April 2020

The 16° Sinclair QL should have been held in Modena as it has been the case
since 2008. Unfortunately, due to the restriction enforced following the
Covid-spread 19 we had to meet on the virtual teleconferencing platform
Jitsi. Twenty people have attended the teleconference including Marcel
Kilgus, Dilwyn Jones and Urs Keonig as welcome international guests. 

Marcel, as also happened in the last two QL Italian meetings, had many
interesting news to report. Guest star was the new RGB-VGA interface for
Sinclair QL. This is yet another very useful piece of hardware to keep the
original QL alive at the time were only SVGA interfaces are available in
modern monitors. The prototype is almost finished and the image quality is
outstanding, everything is managed by a FPGA which scans the RGB signal and
transform it into a VGA signal. All the details can be found on

https://www.kilgus.net/2020/01/08/ql-vga-the-second/ An Italian QL user
living in Toronto since many years, Michele Perini, is designing a QL style
case to be realized with 3D print technology.  

The second news was that the excellent QL-SD interface card will not be any
more realized due to the effort at Marcel’s side needed to solder and
integrate the boards. That’s a pity, but do not despair as a new replacement
named QL-SD ROM is already in the pipeline. This board will connect to the
QL ROM port. The nice plus is that the new QL-SD ROM will have an onboard
flash ram capable to keep up to 8 QL ROMs which can be loaded and selected
with simple SuperBasic commands.
https://www.kilgus.net/2020/03/28/ql-sd-rom-the-early-days/

As side activity Marcel is also working in the port of SMSQ/E for the MiSTer
platform. MiSTer is a hardware platform capable to emulate most of the
“retro-computers”. You can find the Sinclair QL port on

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/QL_MiSTer while a MiSTer description is
given at this link  
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

One of the possible future ideas which were mentioned by Marcel is the QL
port on the Spectrum Next  
https://www.specnext.com/ which has been shown “live” by Massimo Boccardi,
one of the few guys who managed to buy one. One of the nice things about the
Spectrum Next is that the case has been designed by the same designer of the
Sinclair QL case. 

Another nice video contribution was an original Sinclair QL connected to an
internet connection with this serial-ethernet interface

https://www.simulant.uk/shop/retro-vintage-computer-wifi-modem-rs232-serial-
hayes-compatible as well as V-Drive with a case made with SLS 3D printing
technology. The case was almost identical to the original Sinclair QL one.

Dilwyn Jones has shown his QL-IRC program. QL-IRC is written in structured
Super Basic (by Tim Swenson) and allows to any QL platform allowing to have
a TCP/IP connection like QPC2 to an IRC server (like e.g. the one hosted by
QLForum https://qlforum.co.uk/) 

During Dilwyn’s presentation I noticed QL IRC was running on QPC 4.99 so I
could not resist to ask whether this was an error or a special version
developed on purpose for QL IRC. Actually, Marcel forgot that he almost
completed the work on QPC 5 which is a version almost completely re-written
in C a part for the core. There are many advantages vs QPC 4 like full
Direct-X 11 support, an improved floppy driver and capability to save header
information on DOS files. Only minor drawback is that it will not run
anymore on Windows 95.

Last presentation was made by Giorgio Garabello who has shown the latest
developments of his Black Phoenix platform
http://www.hunggartorino.it/ql/black-phoenix-en/ Most of the efforts have
been spent on a new sophisticated file manager called Quantum Explorer which
will be available in the next release. Roberto Porro in parallel has shown
the ongoing development work in the routines to allow image processing also
to be implemented in a new utility which will be part of Black Phoenix.

I hope I did not forget any of the very interesting information exchanged
during this virtual meeting, two hours and a half has flown and our wish has
been to organize a similar virtual event not far in the future. This was
however not new for us as since 2014 during our physical QL Italian meeting
we always organized videoconferencing sessions which allowed many people
from outside Italy to attend and present their projects. Obviously our hope
is that at least in 2021 there will be again a physical meeting where we
will manage to bring again our QL hardware and have together a lunch with
tigelle and Lambrusco.

It is remarkable that after 35 years from his launch and after 31 years
after the first Italian QL