Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
P Witte wrote: Some time ago I wrote about a problem with a green, jinxed PC I have, and I received a lot of helpful advice on this list - Thank you! I had this machine built for me at a local computer shop. Not the industry's brightest people, pehaps, but very helpful and friendly. They were at a complete loss. In desperation, one of the guys brought his own XP3200+ to work and plugged it into my machine. Hey presto! It worked. Then he took my CPU and plugged it into his machine. Lo and behold it worked too! Finally, he claimes, he put my CPU back into my machine - and that too worked! So I took it home, and my green beauty has been working flawlessly for the past 48 hours - a record!. I phoned the guy up to tell him so. He says that his machine doesnt work anymore! He is adamant that I have my own CPU and he his. Whats he got? The computer clap? or is it all clap trap? I dont know. Perhaps Roy has a point about the reliability of Athlons. Perhaps it was just dirty contacts. Perhaps it was the colour of the case. Hopefully the saga has run its course. I would guess a cooling issue. Re-apply some of the cooling pasta and make sure the cooler is properly connected. Badly connected coolers or lack of (sufficient) cooling pasta can cause serious nightmares. Joachim ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On 15 Jan 2005 at 16:33, Joachim Van der Auwera wrote: (...). Re-apply some of the cooling pasta and don't forget the tomato sauce (sorry Joachim, I couldn't resist that one) Wolfgang www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Some time ago I wrote about a problem with a green, jinxed PC I have, and I received a lot of helpful advice on this list - Thank you! I had this machine built for me at a local computer shop. Not the industry's brightest people, pehaps, but very helpful and friendly. They were at a complete loss. In desperation, one of the guys brought his own XP3200+ to work and plugged it into my machine. Hey presto! It worked. Then he took my CPU and plugged it into his machine. Lo and behold it worked too! Finally, he claimes, he put my CPU back into my machine - and that too worked! So I took it home, and my green beauty has been working flawlessly for the past 48 hours - a record!. I phoned the guy up to tell him so. He says that his machine doesnt work anymore! He is adamant that I have my own CPU and he his. Whats he got? The computer clap? or is it all clap trap? I dont know. Perhaps Roy has a point about the reliability of Athlons. Perhaps it was just dirty contacts. Perhaps it was the colour of the case. Hopefully the saga has run its course. Per ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 at 02:21:35, Marcel Kilgus wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Tony Tebby wrote: btw there was a suggestion at QL2004 that a discussion group (rather than a mailing list) could be set up to discuss principles, fundamentals and long standing problems - any interest? Well, I hate web based groups, but there is for example the usenet group maus.computer.ql.intl, I just checked it for the first time in months and it seems to be completely void of life. It has been dead for many years I think. It used to feed QBBS and even when it was alive it was mainly spam after about 2000. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Tony Tebby writes: The worst aspect, I find, is the overthrow of the supervisor-level programming model, which is fundamental to QDOS\SMSQ/E. I should certainly like to hear TT's take on that. There are two aspects here which are completely separate. Thank you for the explanation. When you put it like that it seems so clear ;) For some of us mere tinkerers a residual awe of supervisor mode (ie wizard mode!) may still linger in odd places, clouding the vision. I could comment a bit more if someone could point me to a stable source of information on the road map for the instruction set. Yes! and copy to this list, please. btw there was a suggestion at QL2004 that a discussion group (rather than a mailing list) could be set up to discuss principles, fundamentals and long standing problems - any interest? Despite the noise and its many other failings, this list has been one of the greatest successes in recent QL history, so Id be reluctant for another split to occur. However, if others take the initiative, Id like to join (I'll try to be good and not make a noise ;) Per ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
And you can subscribe to the SQLUG magazine for £5 a year. - Original Message - From: Malcolm Cadman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 7:53 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], John Gilpin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes - Original Message - From: Wolfgang Lenerz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 7:51 PM Subject: Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... On 1 Dec 2004 at 14:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (..), although I suppose it might be true that most on this list are probably members. Most? Probably not (any more). JG I did a quick survey a few days ago covering the last five months contributions to this list and found as follows: Out of 74 different contributors, 25 (34%) are on the Quanta member's database. 5 (7%) are traders (and receive complimentary membership by advertising) 6 (8%) are current or recent past committee members (complimentary membership) 36 (48%) are non-members. 2 (3%) have email addresses which comes up on my machine as hieroglyphics (and it's *not* Pheobus Dokos.) So you see, about half and half, members and non-members. John Gilpin.(individual) Thanks, John. Perhaps that is why the debates on this list are so interesting ... :-) ... as the balance is around 50:50. A point to make is that we all know that this is a small community. So those of us involved have to contribute to keeping things going. For example : I subscribe to Quanta magazine and I am a member - less than 15ukp a year. I subscribe to QL Today - less than 35ukp a year. Together around 1ukp a week. Not much to ask is it ? I also organise the London Quanta and QL-Users Group, along with Ken Brickwood. Another 30ukp a year towards the hire of the hall. Again not much to ask. ( Note : the group is open to non-Quanta members ) I also buy hardware and software when they are available and are of interest. Another contribution to keeping things going. I attend at Shows when I can, and so on. Making a contribution helps make things happen. -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 at 16:17:43, David Tubbs wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) btw there was a suggestion at QL2004 that a discussion group (rather than a mailing list) could be set up to discuss principles, fundamentals and long standing problems - any interest? Tony Surely anything that might avoid the torrents of recapitulation and inappropriate Subject lines would be beneficial. I was amazed that Wolfgang L was able to distill the proforma flow . A forum environment that preserved threads would be so much better. You should invest in a decent mailer. Clearly QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2 cannot manage this. Maybe it can and you haven't configured it? Turnpike optionally routes mail and assembles them in a forum-like (ie newsgroup) tree structure. When using the ql-users routed list under Turnpike, I am really totally unaware that it is _not_ a forum type group. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Phoebus Dokos [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes PhOEbus (Öïßâïò) Dokos -or so you won't transpose it again... FOIVOS NTOKOS so there :-) - Cor ... not him ! I know that guy :-) -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 at 23:28:02, David Tubbs wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) At 16:52 02/12/2004 +, you wrote: Clearly QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2 cannot manage this. Maybe it can and you haven't configured it? Turnpike optionally routes mail and assembles them in a forum-like (ie newsgroup) tree structure. When using the ql-users routed list under Turnpike, I am really totally unaware that it is _not_ a forum type group. I dont see any likelihood of that sort of trick, do you mean it gets rid of those voluminous headers and recycle crud ? A long time since I saw a Turnpike, it seemed cumbersome at the time. The 'recycle crud' is absolutely no problem, as it is marked in red, so the new comments are perfectly clear. I actually prefer to see the context in the message, rather than in a whole cycle of separate messages. What are the 'headers' you talk about? You mean the email header? That is hidden by default. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Tony Tebby wrote: btw there was a suggestion at QL2004 that a discussion group (rather than a mailing list) could be set up to discuss principles, fundamentals and long standing problems - any interest? Well, I hate web based groups, but there is for example the usenet group maus.computer.ql.intl, I just checked it for the first time in months and it seems to be completely void of life. Marcel ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
RE: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Nobody knows :-) -Message d'origine- De : [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] la part de Tony Tebby Envoyé : mardi 30 novembre 2004 15:55 À : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Objet : Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... - Aucun (Nobody?) - wrote: Tony Tebby though designed RomDisq from day one for any size possibly. He once told me that the driver would work up to 64MB. But was he right? Tony ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Nasta writes: WARNING: THIS IS ONE LONG MAIL!!! True to form, eh ;) Here is an excerpt from MicroAPL's PortASM user's manual: I find a lot of this pretty horrendous! Like being forced to speak English, but not allowed to use AND, NOT, OR etc! Having to re-write swaths of the OS (SMSQ/E, I suppose), with all those little subtle differences could cause what is now a relatively stable environment to throw up obscure bugs and errors for years to come. The worst aspect, I find, is the overthrow of the supervisor-level programming model, which is fundamental to QDOS\SMSQ/E. I should certainly like to hear TT's take on that. While the omissions and changes to the instruction set might still allow code written for the CF to work on current systems, the latter would, presumably, not. Although a version of Sbasic might be produced which would be largely code-compatible. The upside is that each version of CF seems to become more compatible with 68k systems, so perhaps in the nearish future such a project might be more attractive? Another way of looking at it would be to see a CF version of SMSQ/E as an entirely separate branch, which would diverge ever more from our SMSQ/E. Im not sure that this would feed back into the QL community - it may even split it once again! - but it would allow the remaining handful of real SMSQ/E programmers to find a development path and commercial outlet for their skills. Am I just sticking my head in the sand? Please advise! BTW, I thought the Crusoe already had a microcode 68k emulator? Per ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On 1 Dec 2004 at 14:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (..), although I suppose it might be true that most on this list are probably members. Most? Probably not (any more). Wolfgang www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Tarquin recently made a serious point when he asked if Quanta committee meetings were secret. There are some of us on the committee who would like to see members being much better informed about what the committee get up to. That could be via this list, but it would be important to make a distinction between official and informal announcements. There are non-members on this list too - I don't see that Quanta should feel obliged to tell them the deliberations of every committee meeting! As has been pointed out lately, this is not a Quanta owned list, although I suppose it might be true that most on this list are probably members. A better vehicle for publishing minutes like that would be the newsletter (or Quanta website perhaps although that would exclude any members without email and make the minutes accessible to non-members as well if an 'open' page) Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On 30.11.2004 at 11:25 Dave P wrote: I know a bit about the romdisq and it sounds like an interesting piece of hardware. How does the romdisq compare to a cut-down qubide with space for one or many CF cards? Not that there's much to 'cut down' on the already very sparse qubide! If a dedicated CF-only Qubide was made, it would be signifficantly sparser, indeed - if it went onto the expansion bus or onto the ROM slot of an Aurora (that one has the requisite 'write' signal unlike the standard port), it would need one CF connector, one GAL and some means to hold the boot code, perhaps a small Flash. The nice thing about romDisq is that having a true ROM mode means you can actually get the driver for romDisq onto romDisq itself and still have the QL see it and initialize it correctly at start-up. Not at all easy (verging on impossible) with CF so you need another form of ROM to hold the driver. Also, on a dedicated CF adaptor, one more chip would have to be used if the CF card itself is to be hot-swapable, however it is doubtfull this would be needed as the hardware itself would only be slightly larger than the CF connector, and therefore only very slightly larger than ROMdisq. With an approach like romDisq, the hardware would stay very similar to romDisq - one programmable logic chip, one ROM-like device for the driver, and a CF connector. N. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
- Original Message - From: Wolfgang Lenerz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 7:51 PM Subject: Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... On 1 Dec 2004 at 14:55, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (..), although I suppose it might be true that most on this list are probably members. Most? Probably not (any more). JG I did a quick survey a few days ago covering the last five months contributions to this list and found as follows: Out of 74 different contributors, 25 (34%) are on the Quanta member's database. 5 (7%) are traders (and receive complimentary membership by advertising) 6 (8%) are current or recent past committee members (complimentary membership) 36 (48%) are non-members. 2 (3%) have email addresses which comes up on my machine as hieroglyphics (and it's *not* Pheobus Dokos.) So you see, about half and half, members and non-members. John Gilpin.(individual) Wolfgang ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 at 21:55:42, John Gilpin wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) JG I did a quick survey a few days ago covering the last five months contributions to this list and found as follows: Out of 74 different contributors, 25 (34%) are on the Quanta member's database. 5 (7%) are traders (and receive complimentary membership by advertising) 6 (8%) are current or recent past committee members (complimentary membership) 36 (48%) are non-members. 2 (3%) have email addresses which comes up on my machine as hieroglyphics (and it's *not* Pheobus Dokos.) So you see, about half and half, members and non-members. John Gilpin.(individual) There are many more readers on the list. 'help' says one can get them all by sending an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body of message: who password but it replies with You are not allowed to retrieve the list membership Hrmm. It worked last time! Bruce - can I have the list please as I want to check my emailshot database. You can get the password (randomly set I think as I have never set one) emailed to you from http://lists.q-v-d.com/options.cgi/ql-users-q-v-d.com BTW Bruce, the 'help' email is badly laid out. There are hard line breaks at a few characters short of the usual 70 or so. It makes it exceedingly difficult to read. I need help reading the 'help' (8-)# This is because each line has a leading 8 hard spaces. Maybe you have written out a text file badly, or is it hard coded? Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
I use them for Worldnews - all under XP. We have had a DVB-s satellite cards running for over two years. They also have two HP PVR cards which have been running for a year or so. These all save video 24hrs, and have given no problem. Ben uses a HP Nexus terrestrial satellite card in a Windows media edition PC with no problem. The only issue I had was that the supplied CD were no use. They all needed drivers (and operating software) from their web site. Speak to their UK technical help line. One gets through _always_ to a person who knows the systems. No remote call centre there. Must be a different place to where I went through then! You seem to live on adifferent planet to me lately Tony. Anyway, it's gone now, swapped it for something much more useful (front panel USB sockets and cabling so I no longer have to go round behind ot plug things in )from someone at work Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Please do fill in the form. It is now very much not just a Quanta questionnaire. Tony Tony, remember when I mentioned I didn't see a 'thank you' page? Did you actually get a form from me at the time? If not, let me know, I'll fill it in again. Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
These two guys at Hauppauge UK have always solved my problems: Ben Grant [EMAIL PROTECTED] Elton Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hmm, you obviously had access to better people than I did then. Their software needs nursing. In particular, it is vital you have a compatible MSIE loaded. The picture viewing is using a modified MS Internet explorer window (at least on the winTV software I was using). What got me was that it worked fine on the same PC with Win98 SE installed. And that has an older IE than WinXP! To recover from a wrong driver installation, there is a complicated, but well documented, backtrack path. You have to run a DOS program to clean the system area and registry. Mine is dvbclear.exe, but there may be others. HCWCLEAR.EXE in my case. Total clear out, that part did work brilliantly! You would certainly have got in deep water using drivers from their supplied CDs. As I said, not one of the four or five systems I installed worked off the CDs. Even the latest drivers from their website failed to get it past the Found New Hardware Wizard stage. By the end I had an extensive collection of drivers from early Win95 days right up to their most recent (in one case unreleased) driver. Drivers also must be installed before putting in the card - for my systems anyway. At least their manuals make this clear. Installing the drivers before card installation didn't lock it up, it was the Found New Hardware Wizard stage each and every time. With the exception of installing the Windows 2000 drivers, it got past the Found new Hardware wizard, but the Win 2000 applications wouldn't run on XP and the XP applications complained about the drivers! I think I must have tried just about every combination of their software and as many versions of the drivers for my PC's hardware. Just about every attempt resulted in having to reinstall WinXP. It's bad enough when drivers don't work, but when they leave a trail of destruction behind them as well. I think I was right to accept there was no way the combination of XP, Win-TV-PCI and my PC was going to work. There comes a point where any more time wasted is just that, time wasted. I had the usual runarounds from their email help facilities with automated replies. Their service was so bad they sent me URLs for drivers updates etc that were incomplete several times me pointing it out. (large section of middle part of the uRLs replaced by characters making it impossible to even guess the address, luckily you can get everything from their main website). One possibility was that my card was an ancient one, going by the serial number. It's entirely possible there may be hardware differences making it incompatible with modern PCs, as I got exactly the same lockups on my son's PC as on mine. Yet it worked on this PC under WIn98SE, which was the only thing that kept me struggling as long as I did. Makes me quite glad to have been a QLer these past 20 years. Trying to sort out problems like that for 20 years would have driven me mad. At least guys like you, Stuart, Rich, Roy and Jochen have been SO helpful in sorting out our problems over the years, I don't see us getting personal service like thatfrom the large companies! Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
At 08:36 30/11/2004 +, you wrote: Anyway, it's gone now, swapped it for something much more useful (front panel USB sockets and cabling so I no longer have to go round behind ot plug things in )from someone at work Dilwyn Jones For that very reason I have knocked up a couple of boxes in the past to have the back at the front. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
- Aucun (Nobody?) - wrote: Tony Tebby though designed RomDisq from day one for any size possibly. He once told me that the driver would work up to 64MB. But was he right? Tony ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
PS: I am really looking forward to ZN's post explaining unsuitability issues with coldfire processors. (hah, on topic!) It would be easy if I could post attachments - Micro APL provide a cross compiler (68k to ColdFire) and emulation pack for CF V3 and 4 free of charge, it's worth getting if nothing else only for the documentation which gives lots of insight into this problem. Since I don't have that option i am going to quote relevant parts of the documentation, so WARNING: THIS IS ONE LONG MAIL!!! I should also mention that it's not worth expending money om naking a QL compatible using anthing but the most capable V4e ColdFire as the chip prices are nearly the same and the performance vastly improved in the last version, not to mention all the extra stuff you get on the chip itself. Incidentally, this means that there is an emulation capability provided, that can be used to emulate most (but not all!) instructions that are implemented in the 68k and not in the CF series CPUs. At QL2004 I only briefly spoke with a few people about this, proposing that most of the instruction set add-ons introduced by 68020, 30, 40 and 60 CPUs not be used as it greatly complicates proper emulation. Fortunately, in the greatest proportion of all software, the CPU is treated as a very slighty expanded and fast bog standard 68k. One job that needs to be done is to carefully and pragmatically decide which if any extensions should be added. Good candidates would be 32-bit multiplication and division, and possibly floating point instructions (note: V4e ColdFires have a FPU, but it is simpler than the original full and extended IEEE implementation in the 68881 and 882 FPUs). Also, it should be decided which instructiuons are not to be used at all (good candidate would be MOVEP), and which should be deprecated and recomended for avoidance, for efficiency reasons. Sadly, this goes against some brilliant work done by other folks, most notably George Gwilt - but at this point, if there is a way forward for a hardware platform (*) it is doubtfull that there is any other choice. (*) I still strongly advocate the existance of a hardware platform. One could consider me biased, surely - but also consider this: SMSQ/E is a GREAT asset in a world of embedded programming, in which developement systems are notoriously composed of vapourware. Mostly the hardware is there, but the software mostly flat out doesn't work or is completely unhelpful - the developers are left to their own devices to make things work as intended. The QL community is dwindling, and with it another great asset: knowledge of efficient embedded programming. In a world where a control program for a LCD monitor uses up 50k of code, programmers that know you can fit entire OSs and more into the same space are VERY hard to find, and also very sought after - it has now come to a point where the existance of such programming is nearly considered a myth. Selling one embedded QL technology based product is likely to be equivalent to the total sales of a major product in the QL market - the frst, given proper attention, can occur several times every year, with gathering mnomentum, the second once every several years. Money earned is not by far the most important result of this: the addition of crytical mass of developers that have a clear way to benefit from their work IS - it all filters back into the QL community. IMHO, this is the way for the QL to survive, and even possibly, thrive in a quiet, but important sort of way, doing what it is best at: reliably solving unique problems. Anyway, back to the ColdFire dilemma: Here is an excerpt from MicroAPL's PortASM user's manual: :quote: Although the ColdFire architecture is closely related to the 680x0, there are many simplifications to the instruction set which mean that 680x0 assembler code may require substantial modifications... Nearly all of the differences are omissions from the 680x0 instruction set and addressing modes. This means that (with a few important exceptions detailed later), a 680x0 instruction which is implemented in ColdFire behaves in exactly the same way under the two architectures. In fact, almost all user-level (and much supervisor-level) ColdFire code can be run unchanged on a 68020 or later 680x0 processor. THE CONVERSE, HOWEVER, IS NOT THE CASE. In outline, the main omissions fall into five categories: Missing addressing modes Missing instructions Non-availability of word- and byte-forms of nearly all arithmetic and logical instructions Many instructions act only on registers, not on memory Restrictions on available addressing modes for particular instructions Simplification of the supervisor-level programming model In addition to these omissions, the ColdFire version 4 core includes some new instructions which PortAsm can optionally make use of - in particular MVS (movewith-sign-extend) and MVZ (move-with-zero-extend). ...Standard RISC processors such as the PowerPC achieve high
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 at 15:54:43, Tony Tebby wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) - Aucun (Nobody?) - wrote: Tony Tebby though designed RomDisq from day one for any size possibly. He once told me that the driver would work up to 64MB. But was he right? Tony (8-)# I would love to put you to the test, but it seems unlikely we will even get to 16 mb (8-(# BTW please email me your UK Midland bank details. There have really been very few sales since the last time, but there is a little commission due. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
I know a bit about the romdisq and it sounds like an interesting piece of hardware. How does the romdisq compare to a cut-down qubide with space for one or many CF cards? Not that there's much to 'cut down' on the already very sparse qubide! Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:25:17 -0600 (CST),() Dave P [EMAIL PROTECTED] /wrote: I know a bit about the romdisq and it sounds like an interesting piece of hardware. How does the romdisq compare to a cut-down qubide with space for one or many CF cards? Not that there's much to 'cut down' on the already very sparse qubide! Dave The QubIDE CF is a mite slower than RomDisq when reading, however the CF is quite faster when writing. The main advantage of the RomDisq is its insane reliability... it has been known to survive even when plugged the wrong way around (courtesy of a misdirected Aurora Rom adaptor) and it's a tiny piece of hardware whereas the qubide is a lot bigger... doesn't work with everything (well that's only partly true because the Romdisq needs ram expansion :-) and its software is rather unreliable... on the other hand it provides capacities up to 2 Gb on CF cards and even more with Microdrives :-) (The IBM kind of course) ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 at 11:25:17, Dave P wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) I know a bit about the romdisq and it sounds like an interesting piece of hardware. How does the romdisq compare to a cut-down qubide with space for one or many CF cards? Not that there's much to 'cut down' on the already very sparse qubide! The RomDisq is a QL boot device. I use it at shows with borrowed QLs. It is also _very_ fast reading. I forget the figures, but it beat qubide. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, Tony Firshman wrote: The RomDisq is a QL boot device. I use it at shows with borrowed QLs. It is also _very_ fast reading. I forget the figures, but it beat qubide. When reading, it's accessed just like a ROM, with extended addressing, right? One of the things that I love about older computers, especially anything Sinclair-related, was the stunning hardware hackery to get things to work, and the amazing use of code to render short-comings no-longer-short! It also shows the importance of an expansion system. Any future QL-hardware will need an expansion system. This raises the question of what interesting things people have done with their Qx0 ISA slots. Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, gwicks wrote: Don't forget there are some organisations that forbid committee members from expressing personal opinions in public. Quanta is fortunately not one of them, as you have well seen from my ouput over the last month, but I think it has the right to expect committee members to make it clear when they are writing individually. Organizations cannot _formally_ do this. If you are posting from your own email address, it is your opinion. If the email address is provided by Quanta, they have every right to limit your responses. Personal addresses, they have no right to do so. What happens is that informal pressure is applied, or the rule is a request that is unlawfully worded as an order. Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Tue, 30 Nov 2004 20:20:05 +,() Tony Firshman [EMAIL PROTECTED] /wrote: snip It also shows the importance of an expansion system. Any future QL-hardware will need an expansion system. This raises the question of what interesting things people have done with their Qx0 ISA slots. Someone at the Byfleet show asked for an ISA to USB converter (8-)# There is actually one (British made too) In fact the more likely approach would be to use a pcmicia card with a pcmcia USB card. There's also an ISA to PCMCIA :-) ... now who was it who was going to write the drivers (8-)# Tony (Tebby) :-) ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Dilwyn Jones writes: It was a drivers issue. Hauppauge's Win-TV-PCI drivers for XP actually knacker other XP drivers (and I tried all driver versions for XP from 3.35 to 3.43beta). Hence the problems every other bit of hardware was having. Bin the Win-TV card (which worked fine on this machine under WIn98SE) and reinstall from scratch after fdisk, format and reformat I found the Haupauge TV products to be quite hopless. Ive got two and will never buy another from them until Im reliably informed that theyve got their house in order. Guess its not under warranty still !! Yes, or at least it was until I opened the case seal to insert the TV card. Ive successfully argued that PCs are by definition user-upgradable. Dont let yourself be bullied! Guess you should have gone back to the QL !! QL. And a small portable TV. Best suggestion so far! Watch TV on a QL? Now theres a great project. Lets just get this other stuff out of the way first.. ;) Per ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 at 19:52:59, P Witte wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Dilwyn Jones writes: It was a drivers issue. Hauppauge's Win-TV-PCI drivers for XP actually knacker other XP drivers (and I tried all driver versions for XP from 3.35 to 3.43beta). Hence the problems every other bit of hardware was having. Bin the Win-TV card (which worked fine on this machine under WIn98SE) and reinstall from scratch after fdisk, format and reformat I found the Haupauge TV products to be quite hopless. Ive got two and will never buy another from them until Im reliably informed that theyve got their house in order. I use them for Worldnews - all under XP. We have had a DVB-s satellite cards running for over two years. They also have two HP PVR cards which have been running for a year or so. These all save video 24hrs, and have given no problem. Ben uses a HP Nexus terrestrial satellite card in a Windows media edition PC with no problem. The only issue I had was that the supplied CD were no use. They all needed drivers (and operating software) from their web site. Speak to their UK technical help line. One gets through _always_ to a person who knows the systems. No remote call centre there. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 at 10:20:43, John Gilpin wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) - Original Message - From: Jeremy Taffel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2004 11:28 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... printer issue (I think) I think this question was discussed at Byfleet and hope that it will be added to the questionnaire. Will this be too late for those who have already filled one in? John Gilpin.(individual) What question would you like added? Sorry, but I haven't been following this thread, and am too busy today to think of finding and reading (8-)# It is probably too late now though. We have had probably 80 replies, and any new questions need emailing to all those who have already replied. What I will probably do is save up additional questions and then email everyone automatically afterwards, asking them to fill in a supplementary form. This info can then be appended to the database. Thanks are due to John Southern. All paper forms he receives he is entering manually on the on-line form. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
- Original Message - From: Tony Firshman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 12:00 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 at 10:20:43, John Gilpin wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) - Original Message - From: Jeremy Taffel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2004 11:28 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... printer issue (I think) I think this question was discussed at Byfleet and hope that it will be added to the questionnaire. Will this be too late for those who have already filled one in? John Gilpin.(individual) What question would you like added? Sorry, but I haven't been following this thread, and am too busy today to think of finding and reading (8-)# Something to the effect:If you have been a Quanta member and have resigned, please indicate why you left John Gilpin (individual) It is probably too late now though. We have had probably 80 replies, and any new questions need emailing to all those who have already replied. What I will probably do is save up additional questions and then email everyone automatically afterwards, asking them to fill in a supplementary form. This info can then be appended to the database. Good idea - JG Thanks are due to John Southern. All paper forms he receives he is entering manually on the on-line form. John S. seems very excited about the results so far - JG Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 at 13:22:41, John Gilpin wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) - Original Message - From: Jeremy Taffel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2004 11:28 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... printer issue (I think) I think this question was discussed at Byfleet and hope that it will be added to the questionnaire. Will this be too late for those who have already filled one in? John Gilpin.(individual) What question would you like added? Sorry, but I haven't been following this thread, and am too busy today to think of finding and reading (8-)# Something to the effect:If you have been a Quanta member and have resigned, please indicate why you left Ah that one. I was programming it before I left for the show, de-bugged at the show, and put it on line this morning! Sorry - I thought you were talking about printers. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
*** REPLY SEPARATOR *** Dilwyn Jones wrote: I use a ROMDisq in this situation, though a new 128MB ROMDisq would solve the problem. Technically I could make a 16mb RomDisq with the existing hardware. Unfortunately the minimum chip buy is about UKP5,000, so not on. This all sounds a bit silly when you consider that a cheap compact flash card and reader for the PC costs about £12. ...CF crad readers which work with Qubide do exist In fact, the Flash chip market is swamped by huge overdemands - right now it has become even more difficult getting small amounts of chips because orders of several tens of thousands are not uncommon. In the case of flash ROM used in USB keys and CF cards etc (which are of different type but actually more suited for something like romDisq - unfortunately they were in their infancy when romDisq was designed), it is nearly impossible to get samples - the best wai is to find a cheap flash key and take it appart - and for small runs, the cheapest too. I have recently corresponded with a Samsung sales representative and they told me that I could get my parts in a year or so (a few hundred) unless i ordered several hundred thousand in which case they would bump down another large customer on the waiting list! The chips in question are 1Gbit capacity (128M bytes), the most common chip used in USB flash storage. In the end I got my sample by dissasembling a brand new USB flash, one of the older types which was large, easy to dissasemble and quite cheap too ;-) That being said, it seems that I will be getting a few samples of the new 16Mbyte (128Mbit) regular flash, which are to be used in the small porta-QL design I talked about at QL2004. These are selectable byte/word organisation devices, alas not directly usable on romDisq... Nasta ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On 25/11/04 at 21:07 Dave P wrote: The QL uses such minimal power that unless we are using Coldfire this can be ignored. Not so. On the typical PC laptop motherboard is a charge control circuit to regulate the current to the battery, and power monitoring to select whether the battery is charged, used, or ignored. Actually, the QL uses quite a lot of power by today's standards for low power devices, but definitely negligible compared to today's laptops. Using a Coldfire CPU (which has it's own problems I may find time to discuss in another email), things can only get better - the most power-hungry Coldfire uses only about 2W of power. To give you some perspective, it could run for approximately an hour and a half on an average mobile phone Li-ion battery. hard to disagree this point) then what is really in demand is an embedded QL-compatible platform that can be a desktop or laptop board, or used for control/monitoring functions, etc. It would need to be a board of two halves, logically speaking. A standard processing, OS, memory and required interfaces half and a custom interfaces half (if that counts as half). Ironically, this is more-or-less what Nasta designed as the Aurora II. Heh... but sometimes I really hate being right about some things ;-) As it happens, my current employer needs precisely such a device, though not as powerful computing-wise as the combo of GoldFire and Aurora II. QL compatibility is actually one of the goals - time and time again, I have demonstrated that it is a very valuable tool, usually by writing small snippets of Sbasic on QPC2 to develop control algorithms for some of his hardware (and in this case I do mean hardware, as in motors, magnets and the like). To this end I now have on my table 10 68SZ328 fully 68k compatible 'systems on a chip' - commonly known as the last DragonBall CPU, used in Palm's last series of 68k based palm-pilots. This chip is still in production, and aside for not being extremely fast (it's a 66MHz 68000), it fits the bill quite nicely. The next project we are alrerady looking at is something similar using the new V4e Coldfires. The 68SZ328 'QL' will be a small 4-layer board slightly wider than the Aurora (say, the size of the printed Quanta mag). 16M of Flash (Replaced by 32M when larger chips become available) and 64M of RAM will come as standard. Also a VGA or TFT LCD interface, CF and MMC memory card slots, serial ports, and quite possibly USB and/or Ethernet. The intention is to make these available almost at cost to the QL community in exchange for porting SMSQ/E etc. First prototypes will probably also have a QL compatible expansion port, and all can be affixed to a small VGA resolution (640 x 480) TFT LCD. My only discomfort over Nasta's design is that he is extremely concerned about efficiency of space. Therefore, he's crammed an awful lot into a very small 6-layer PCB. Actually, it's 4 layer ;-) 6 Layer is not that much more expensive though - 15 to 20% has been quoted to me by the manufacturer. The only problem with said manufacturer is that it's the next country over, now part of the EU, which makes it necessary to go through rather complex customs procedures, but as my employer is looking at moving to multilayer boards anyway, it may be possible to do a 'where 4 can fit, the 5th can usually be easily shoed in' thing. Nasta is just too efficient for his own good ;) Looking back, I'm not really that efficient at all ;-( but I hope I will improve... BTW with recent experience in doing 2 layer boards running CPUs and RAM at 100MHz, I am convinced more than ever that ANYTHING can be fitted into 4 layers ;-) Oh, and one more thing - the same recent experiences have shown again that autorouters are still abysmal at doing any sort of efficient PCB design. At least the ones I can afford... Doing the routing manually, which took about a week, admittedly, I have managed to squeeze one 160x100mm 4-layer board and one 40x100mm 2 layer board (both autorouted) onto a single 120 x 70mm 2-layer board, almost 3x less area and about 7x lower cost of manufacture. Nasta PS, special note to TF: Aurora II and GF are routed with 8.333mil wide tracks and 8.333mil spacing - so not quite to romDisq standards but then, both sides are completely covered by components ;-) ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On 25/11/04 at 13:18 Dave P wrote: Most elements of Nasta's Aurora II design are tried and tested, but the ethernet part is completely new. I would be inclined to suggest a short run of prototype ethernet only QL-standard expansion cards to go to developers. Once the hardware exists, it becomes an option to form a working group to produce drivers and a friendly API. We're looking at a few hundred pounds for the hardware, and hundreds-thousands of hours for the drivers... Dave Actually, the Ethernet part is integrated onto Qubide II, named EtherIDE. The IDE part is a slightly expanded and completely updated Qubide, and the Ethernet part is actually only a very small area on that borad - it was integrated literally because there was left-over space and cost of putting it over there equals cost of Ethernet chip plus magnetics plus connector. Because of this, it is easily 'transportable' onto a different project or on a stand-alone board. It is certainly possible to produce such board in small quantity and relatively cheaply (I am in fact looking into it right now). However, this supposes several things about the system in which it is to be used: 1) SGC 2) Aurora 3) Backplane And also, it relies on usage of the external interrupt pin (similar to superHermes). There are only a few people that would know how to use this, Lau Reeves foremost ;-) The hardware is 10BaseT, so 10 Mbit, fortunately, the manufacturer also makes a software compatible 100Mbit chip. One more thing connected with EtherIDE - it would actually be more straightforward to integrate a USB interface onto the Qubide II instead of Ethernet. Some time ago a Philips USB chip was discussed on this list. This uses a 16-bit data bus, and the only place this is currently available on a QL is on the IDE connector of a Qubide. The local Philips distributor has promised a few samples of this by the end of the year... N. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 at 18:08:43, ZN wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) PS, special note to TF: Aurora II and GF are routed with 8.333mil wide tracks and 8.333mil spacing - so not quite to romDisq standards but then, both sides are completely covered by components ;-) (8-)# I didn't actually design to 3mil, only 5mil I think, but the capability is there. Welcome back to the list - we have missed you. Sounds like you have some really interesting projects on the table. I saw your comments about flash chips. My experience was _exactly_ the same. I designed RomDisq for the 4 mbyte chips. At the time the chip did not exist, and the relevant address line was not allocated. In A17 plus sequence, there _was_ a spare pin in the logical spot, but no-one (manufacturer especially) would commit. I used that pin for the address line and so RomDisq was ready before even the specs were released. Unfortunately when it was manufactured, I could not get samples, and yes, they demanded a massive order. The cost of the chips alone was going to be more than the entire RomDisq turnover to date. and they couldn't quote a delivery date and they would cost more than twice the 2mbyte chip. I haven't looked in to it recently, but I think there are not enough 'real' QL or Aurora owners to justify. I would love to be proved wrong, but I had very little response the first time I told this story. I haven't even _asked_ Stuart Honeyball if he can re-code the logic chip. I suspect he will not have his documentation (much like SGC). Tony Tebby though designed RomDisq from day one for any size possibly. Certainly 16 mbyte would work. The 4 mbyte RomDisq was an afterthought. Even a 6mb would work. He simply stops formatting when he cannot find any more blocks. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Tony Tebby though designed RomDisq from day one for any size possibly. He once told me that the driver would work up to 64MB. Arnould WebMail / Magic OnLine http://www.magic.fr ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Hmm. Do we fill in another form, or just 1 question, or do nothing mike - Original Message - From: Tony Firshman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 4:33 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 at 23:28:03, Jeremy Taffel wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Jeremy Taffel wrote: I'd be interested to know what the final split is in Tony's/Quanta's survey between more traditional hardware and the emulators. I haven't filled it in yet myself - I started, but then got frustrated and gave up - as an ex-Quanta member I feel that I should be able to fill in the Quanta related questions. Isn't anyone interested in why people leave, and what could be done to get them to rejoin? I have added that question to the questionnaire. I started trying to work out the logic of leaving in the other Quanta questions and it all got too complicated! Please do fill in the form. It is now very much not just a Quanta questionnaire. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
John Gilpin (individual) writes: PS. Just to explain this signature format: It was agreed at the Quanta Committee meeting at Byfleet yesterday that no one member of that committee should pass an opinion and leave it such that it could be taken to be an opinion of the Quanta Committee. In future all comments sent to this or other forums should indicate that they are comments expressed by an individual and should not be taken as being from Quanta, its committee or its membership unless specifically indicated that it is sent with authority from those bodies. Wouldnt it be better if the default mode was (individual) ? We're all (individual)s on this list. If you were making some Committe announcement or writing in your official capacity you could use (QUANTA) to make that clear. Per (Per) ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, P Witte wrote: Wouldnt it be better if the default mode was (individual) ? We're all (individual)s on this list. If you were making some Committe announcement or writing in your official capacity you could use (QUANTA) to make that clear. Dear (*)Sir ( )Madam Your ( )email (*)post ( )spam was ( )not at all (*)almost as interesting as the (*)original post ( )last spam. ( )Please refrain from such posts in future. ( )What where you thinking? (*)This meets the requirement that civilian posts not be as funny as Quanta Governmental Rulings ( )__insert remark here__ Dave PS: I am really looking forward to ZN's post explaining unsuitability issues with coldfire processors. (hah, on topic!) ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Tnx - Original Message - From: Tony Firshman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 7:57 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 at 19:48:50, Mike MacNamara wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Hmm. Do we fill in another form, or just 1 question, or do nothing There will be a supplementary form asking the additional questions. Sorry - I thought I had said that in an earlier post. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Unfortunately, getting it to work with some machine combinations would take longer than copying Rich's pile of floppy disks. :-))) Never quite known anything like Sernet. Once you get it to work it works brilliantly. Getting past the serial connections stage is a nightmare other than between two PCs, where a standard PC cable works fine with the 9 and 25 pin D sockets. I still say there must be a market for QL-PC sernet compatible cables and how to wire up the MinisQL port leads that Ron Dunnett supplied. Never once managed to get the serial link from MinisQL working to anything I don't think. I used it between an atari and a PC without many problems. Yes, PC Atari and Q60 seem to be the problem free zone as far as Sernet is concerned. One day, when I have time, I'm going to get the QL and MinisQL serial ports sorted out. Somewhat frustrating to have a Minis-QL with a network incompatible with the PC with a network on the same desktop not speaking to each other (OK, so some would say the Aurora is only being sensible!) The Minis-QL serial port connectors are simple IDC to 9-pin D but I haven't been able to get the pinouts sussed, once past that stage it should be fairly simple top sernet them. Better than a PC crashing, though, eh? I expect a PC to crash. Worries me when it doesn't. :-) (Says he one reinstall later, with Win-TV card in the bin and suddenly the PC is working without problems so far after reinstalling the damaged Windows from CD, let's see how long it lasts this time!). -- Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Now that comment shows you to be a bit far removed from the average user. Serial ports might be easy to you, so you haven't had to deal with the regular flow of 'sernet doesn't work' messages. It's taken me this long to (fail) to get sernet working from PC or Aurora to anything, yet it works just fine between PCs for me (and Ataris and Q60s by all acounts). The Aurora in my MinisQL has a 9 pin D connector so you'd expect it to work with a PC cable, but it doesn't! And the IDC connectors can go on the Aurora either way, there is no locking mechanism to make sure it's in right way round Sorry, but anyone who thinks serials are easy is living on a different planet to the average user. Dilwyn Serial communication really isn't. Tony ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
USB to (any kind of) networking is a bad solution at best... especially if your USB/NIC are USB 1.1 compatible... you WILL experience at best hiccups or temporary lock-ups and that's not the machine's fault (nor Windows' impressively :-) On this machine, XP allowed USB peripherals to work with nothing other than XP drivers (printer and Mobile Disk memory sticks), which I expected, but an error 'no driver' is shown for one of the onboard components for which you have to install a driver from the motherboard CD supplied. I don't know what it does, but it did need a driver. And even though the Mobile Disks and USB on my PC are both USB2.0 it still gets the warning message 'high speed device plugged into non-high-speed USB hub'. Likewise, this modem needs an XP driver from the supplied CD. Likewise, the TV tuner card needs XP-specific drivers Likewise, the printer needs XP specific drivers (in fact the Win2000 ones work as there's not yet XP drivers for it). Likewise, the scanner needs XP-specific drivers, except Primax don't do XP drivers and tell people to use their NT or Win2000 drivers instead. Rich is right: back to a QL! Incidentally, can anyone tell me if my line wrap at 70 characetrs is working now? It isn't on-screen as I type this, but you never know what it might be until it reaches the modem! Also, am I sending plain text (it's set to plain text but I can't tell!) -- Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Dilwyn Jones wrote: What exactly is the registry? The mother of all INI files. Actually it's a database which stores all configuration information. Marcel ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Dilwyn Jones wrote: Incidentally, can anyone tell me if my line wrap at 70 characetrs is working now? Don't bother, Outlook Express is broken in this respect and has always been. Only solution is to use a real email program. Marcel ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tony Firshman wrote: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 at 13:28:02, Dilwyn Jones wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) I use a ROMDisq in this situation, though a new 128MB ROMDisq would solve the problem. (8-)# Technically I could make a 16mb RomDisq with the existing hardware. Unfortunately the minimum chip buy is about UKP5,000, so not on. Tony This all sounds a bit silly when you consider that a cheap compact flash card and reader for the PC costs about £12. I bought a smartmedia card and jenreader (USB) for about that much for my son recently. OK, it's USB, but CF crad readers which work with Qubide do exist, better (well, more cost effective I should say) to go down that sort of route rather than invest in large memory costly romdisqs which not many might buy. The Romdisq chips of any size are not expensive - I would just have to buy in vast quantities! They come in racks and are not sold individually. Worse than that, the 4mbyte chip is more than twice the 2mbyte chip! I take it that that is not the AM29F032B -90FC and AM29F032B -90EC? -- Tarquin Mills ACCUS (Anglia Classic Computer Users Society) http://www.speccyverse.me.uk/comp/accus/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
At 16:24 28/11/2004 +, you wrote: It was a drivers issue. Hauppauge's Win-TV-PCI drivers for XP actually knacker other XP drivers (and I tried all driver versions for XP from 3.35 to 3.43beta). Hence the problems every other bit of hardware was having. Bin the Win-TV card (which worked fine on this machine under WIn98SE) I have the Ati all in wonder 128, after upping to XP new driver from Ati and now it even does TIVO. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
At 17:02 28/11/2004 +, you wrote: What exactly is the registry? Although I've had to change one or two settings, it's pretty gibberish to me. Gives me the impression of being something akin to what we would call a BOOT program or config block. If you have to ask you really don't want to know - it is hell in there. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
At 17:00 28/11/2004 +, you wrote: Rich is right: back to a QL! No IV No Scanner No mobile disks No USB and printer problems as a bonus ! Incidentally, can anyone tell me if my line wrap at 70 characetrs is working now? It isn't on-screen as I type this, but you never know what it might be until it reaches the modem! Or beyond - can always email to yourself. And as someone else remarked it gets buggered if the recipient has a narrow window. It is the original complainant who should set his prog to WRAP Also, am I sending plain text (it's set to plain text but I can't tell!) As a QLer why would you have your prog set to fancy ? ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
I think that is quite proper, the CD is working properly, just the SETUP is intended to run in Windows. There is no external DOS with XP. I created a DOS boot disk from XP to test that. Sure enough, even booting into that DOS disk, the XP CD still would not start, it says something about not running in DOS. The XP GD is intended to be the boot device. I'm not sure, but I think Win XP can only be installed by booting into the CD. When you are not doing something as fundamental as removing a major hardware component you will be better off to use XP's restore feature. Normally yes. The Win-TV drivers knackered this too. A W98 boot disk offers CD operation as a choice, never tried the XP one. It's a very basic DOS bootup disk, not really like the Win98 concept. There's no DOS prompt as such in Win XP as you say. You have to run CMD.EXE I thinkit's called to issue DOS style commands. Actually, quite useful as you can get a printed list of files similar to a DIR command with DIR C:\*.* PRN or similar, which amazingly Windoze Exploder can't do. The things we take for granted on a QL eh? DIR \PAR,FLP1_ for example. -- Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Thanks Malcolm. There's something wrong with how it displays on my machine in OE, but as long as I'm sending correctly, I'll sort my end out later. I've set it to use Courier for both compose and read, but it's using Arial non-proportional for both. For plain text, I'd prefer a fixed pitch font, but I'll get there. Dilwyn Jones Incidentally, can anyone tell me if my line wrap at 70 characetrs is working now? It isn't on-screen as I type this, but you never know what it might be until it reaches the modem! Also, am I sending plain text (it's set to plain text but I can't tell!) It is fine now ... :-) -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
SERNET is great when you get it to work. Unfortunately, getting it to work with some machine combinations would take longer than copying Rich's pile of floppy disks. I never managed to get it to work between my MinisQL and PC or between QL and anything else. Most likely cabling issues. It works fine between two PCs with the usual serial leads, but most people are put off because they can't get it to work out of the box. Usual on-going QL problems which never get fully solved. -- Dilwyn Jones - Original Message - From: Wolfgang Lenerz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 7:13 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... On 26 Nov 2004 at 13:30, Rich Mellor wrote: No idea - I never owned it alas - guess a serial lead was supplied with the package In that case, use sernet to transfer the files It wouldn't be slower than the slaving prog... Wolfgang www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On 27 Nov 2004 at 13:43, Dilwyn Jones wrote: SERNET is great when you get it to work. Unfortunately, getting it to work with some machine combinations would take longer than copying Rich's pile of floppy disks. :-))) I never managed to get it to work between my MinisQL and PC or between QL and anything else. Most likely cabling issues. It works fine between two PCs with the usual serial leads, but most people are put off because they can't get it to work out of the box. I used it between an atari and a PC without many problems. Usual on-going QL problems which never get fully solved. Yup. Better than a PC crashing, though, eh? Wolfgang www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Windows XP is so well behaved at work, I just can't understand why I get all this hassle with everything that isn't made by Micro$oft. Have you considered that it may actually be a hardware problem - memory or the hard drive seem the most likely candidates - XP is a lot more hungry of both than 98SE... Could also be the processor - if processor is faulty, then it won't be formatting the hard drive properly BTW - I recently had to reformat and reinstall my PC - found that a format from DOS did not actually resolve the problems and once I reinstalled everything, system was still having the same problems. I therefore removed the partition and recreated it before reformmating - reinstallation was fine after that... Guess its not under warranty still !! Guess you should have gone back to the QL !! -- Rich Mellor RWAP Services 26 Oak Road, Shelfield, Walsall, West Midlands WS4 1RQ http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 at 13:28:02, Dilwyn Jones wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) I use a ROMDisq in this situation, though a new 128MB ROMDisq would solve the problem. (8-)# Technically I could make a 16mb RomDisq with the existing hardware. Unfortunately the minimum chip buy is about UKP5,000, so not on. Tony This all sounds a bit silly when you consider that a cheap compact flash card and reader for the PC costs about £12. I bought a smartmedia card and jenreader (USB) for about that much for my son recently. OK, it's USB, but CF crad readers which work with Qubide do exist, better (well, more cost effective I should say) to go down that sort of route rather than invest in large memory costly romdisqs which not many might buy. The Romdisq chips of any size are not expensive - I would just have to buy in vast quantities! They come in racks and are not sold individually. Worse than that, the 4mbyte chip is more than twice the 2mbyte chip! Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 at 13:49:26, Dilwyn Jones wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Yes, but as standard QLs can't have split tx and rx devices (STX and SRX I think SMSQ/E calls them) you would need something like Hans Peter Recktenwald's SIMSER extensions for standard QDOS QLs to be able to cope. The real challenge with a QL is understanding the serial port cablings, since ser1 and ser2 are not wired the same way. And remember that sernet has to be configured right too. The challenge of serial leads was solved over a decade ago (8-)# Of course to work fast reliably (ie above 4800 bps) it needs Hermes or superHermes. (Don't know why I'm getting involved with this, getting involved in queries regarding Sernet or Printing or Pointer Environment has always been never ending, hence why I got rid of my DJC phone number to get some peace and quiet in the evenings). Indeed. You re-solved that a couple of years ago in this very list. This is a problem that never seems to go away. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 at 15:38:53, Rich Mellor wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Windows XP is so well behaved at work, I just can't understand why I get all this hassle with everything that isn't made by Micro$oft. Have you considered that it may actually be a hardware problem - memory or the hard drive seem the most likely candidates - XP is a lot more hungry of both than 98SE... Could also be the processor - if processor is faulty, then it won't be formatting the hard drive properly I have the same thoughts - or even a corrupted driver. My experience of XP with _all_ the installations I have done (running to maybe 20 of mine and worldnews machines) is that I have had _no_ problems. ... well other than one machine after SP2. On most installations, I have not had to use extra drivers at all. It simply works. The first time I installed XP, I thought something had gone worng, as XP arrived with the desktop without once even mentioning drivers - but _everything_ worked fine. BTW - I recently had to reformat and reinstall my PC - found that a format from DOS did not actually resolve the problems and once I reinstalled everything, system was still having the same problems. I therefore removed the partition and recreated it before reformmating - reinstallation was fine after that... Yes - a completely clean install is -always- the best way. It is also a good opportunity to clean the registry, like a de-coke. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], James Hunkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Malcolm, As an alternative on your side can't you set your email program to wrap the lines for you? Both my email programs do this automatically and all the emails that I have received from this list are fitted automatically to my window width which is great! If someone forces hard stops in a line as you suggest, then when the reader gets it and if his window doesn't match the width, he ends up getting some short cutoff lines which are a bit annoying :) Yes, I could do that ... yet the guide for newsgroups is 70 characters, which most people have set. So, generally there is rarely a problem. -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dilwyn Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes This PC is set to 70 characters line width in Outlook Express. Since moving to XP the setting seems to get ignored. The ones I send from work (usually daytime times on them) are sent from Tesco Webmail where you have no control whatsoever over them. Stuck whichever way I look at it. OK ... don't worry about it :-) ... I just thought I would mention it in case you hadn't noticed it yourself. Seem to be in a loop of having to do repair reinstallations of Windows on this PC at home every 2 days or so and getting TOTALLY pd off with it. I seem to get more done in lunchbreak at work than I do at home thanks to this bloody PC. QL Today's next issue is at an almost total halt because of it (apart from what Jochen is doing). Good job I didn't get very far with Rich's SER/PAR to PFF program because the QXL.WIN was the latest casualty last night, with the most recent backup being earlier this week. Just why oh why do PCs have to be so unreliable? I guess that is why there is life left in alternative systems ... -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
My experiences with XP are mixed. Normally I have no problems whatsoever. However I have encountered one AMD Athlon powered machine from Time which is guaranteed to have a fit any time any new USB device is attached and sometimes throws a fit when new software (eg open office) are installed. One item ( USB wireless network device) which I have had working fine on several other machines refused point blank to install properly. its difficult to know if its a hardware fault or incompabilities between various chipsets. Several years ago I had similar problems to those described on a PII running 98, and found myself re-installing every few weeks. eventually I discovered that reducing bus speed etc to the minimum supported by the mobo, all the problems disappeared. I sent it back, and after 12 weeks diagnostics !? the supplier had to admit that it was a hardware fault on the Mobo. I think that the design of the board was marginal on RFI, and I was unlucky; the noise when under heavy load was sufficient to get the occasional data corruption. Jeremy Tony Firshman wrote: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 at 15:38:53, Rich Mellor wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Windows XP is so well behaved at work, I just can't understand why I get all this hassle with everything that isn't made by Micro$oft. Have you considered that it may actually be a hardware problem - memory or the hard drive seem the most likely candidates - XP is a lot more hungry of both than 98SE... Could also be the processor - if processor is faulty, then it won't be formatting the hard drive properly I have the same thoughts - or even a corrupted driver. My experience of XP with _all_ the installations I have done (running to maybe 20 of mine and worldnews machines) is that I have had _no_ problems. ... well other than one machine after SP2. On most installations, I have not had to use extra drivers at all. It simply works. The first time I installed XP, I thought something had gone worng, as XP arrived with the desktop without once even mentioning drivers - but _everything_ worked fine. BTW - I recently had to reformat and reinstall my PC - found that a format from DOS did not actually resolve the problems and once I reinstalled everything, system was still having the same problems. I therefore removed the partition and recreated it before reformmating - reinstallation was fine after that... Yes - a completely clean install is -always- the best way. It is also a good opportunity to clean the registry, like a de-coke. Tony ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:14:26 +,() Jeremy Taffel [EMAIL PROTECTED] /wrote: My experiences with XP are mixed. Normally I have no problems whatsoever. However I have encountered one AMD Athlon powered machine from Time which is guaranteed to have a fit any time any new USB device is attached and sometimes throws a fit when new software (eg open office) are installed. One item ( USB wireless network device) which I have had working fine on several other machines refused point blank to install properly. its difficult to know if its a hardware fault or incompabilities between various chipsets. USB to (any kind of) networking is a bad solution at best... especially if your USB/NIC are USB 1.1 compatible... you WILL experience at best hiccups or temporary lock-ups and that's not the machine's fault (nor Windows' impressively :-) Several years ago I had similar problems to those described on a PII running 98, and found myself re-installing every few weeks. eventually I discovered that reducing bus speed etc to the minimum supported by the mobo, all the problems disappeared. I sent it back, and after 12 weeks diagnostics !? the supplier had to admit that it was a hardware fault on the Mobo. I think that the design of the board was marginal on RFI, and I was unlucky; the noise when under heavy load was sufficient to get the occasional data corruption. Sounds more like memory failure (Most of the early memory wouldn't work properly at marginal speeds).. except if it were a Asustek (Asus). Some of their PII mainboards although pricey were notoriously misdesigned Phoebus ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Tony Firshman writes: It is also a good opportunity to clean the registry, like a de-coke. Sounds painful, ie de-cokeing and cleaning the registry. Per ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
At 14:05 27/11/2004 +, you wrote: During my recent XPriences I had to set my PC to boot up from CD, as the CD would not install from DOS. I think that is quite proper, the CD is working properly, just the SETUP is intended to run in Windows. There is no external DOS with XP. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 at 19:17:47, P Witte wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Tony Firshman writes: It is also a good opportunity to clean the registry, like a de-coke. Sounds painful, ie de-cokeing and cleaning the registry. de-coking is cleaning a car cylinder head of carbon. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:02:37 +,() Tony Firshman [EMAIL PROTECTED] /wrote: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 at 19:17:47, P Witte wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Tony Firshman writes: It is also a good opportunity to clean the registry, like a de-coke. Sounds painful, ie de-cokeing and cleaning the registry. de-coking is cleaning a car cylinder head of carbon. Unless you have Bill's Saab which you then run the risk of it not running at all once cleaned :-D Of course as it is known Bill's Saab runs on fuel with TF (Tony Firshman) octane booster (manufactured with spit, duct-tape and nasty looks towards the engine - That'll teach you to stop working on me :-)) Phoebus ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Phoebus Dokos wrote: USB to (any kind of) networking is a bad solution at best... especially if your USB/NIC are USB 1.1 compatible... you WILL experience at best hiccups or temporary lock-ups and that's not the machine's fault (nor Windows' impressively :-) That was not the problem. This was a officeconnect usb wireless networking interface which I have had working fine in 2 other XP machines, one win 98se and one win ME. On the one XP machine only, it went part way through the installation process and bombed then came up with an error message - repeatedly. That same machine took 5 attempts to install a USB scanner, 3 or 4 to install an Epson printer on USB and dozens of attempts to install a USB camera. Eventually, after much perseverence, and many periods when the machine wouldn't even boot, I got all the items to install properly, (except for the network interface) but I can't say that anything was done differently the time the installation was successful. I have two PCs permanently networked; one using a standard 10/100 ethernet card, the other using an SMC USB to ethernet adapter. Both are dual boot win98 and linux and the network works perfectly with any mix between the two operating systems. Sounds more like memory failure (Most of the early memory wouldn't work properly at marginal speeds).. except if it were a Asustek (Asus). Some of their PII mainboards although pricey were notoriously misdesigned. No, it was tested with other memory - with the same problem. I'm not talking about marginal speeds; but running a 100MHz bus at 75MHz, on memory that should have been good for 133MHz. The change of motherboard did the trick. It wasn't Asustek, I think it was PCPartner. The replacement mobo (Pcchips) has never given any problems and that PC is still using the original memory. Jeremy ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Jeremy Taffel wrote: My experiences with XP are mixed. Normally I have no problems whatsoever... All I was trying to say is that when it comes to PCs, the hardware is so variable that I really don't think you read across OS experiences from one to another. My most stable machine runs windows 95! I wouldn't claim though that win95 is more stable than 98 or XP, just that it suits that particular setup. I have one windows98 machine which is mainly very reliable, and another (with more memory) which crashes through memory leaks. I have had good and bad experiences with XP. I have had Linux Mandrake 10.0 work perfectly on several PCs, and make a complete pig's ear of hardware detection on another It took me about an hour to set up one hybrid wired/wireless network on 4 PCs with a shared broadband connection (2 XP one 98se, one 95), and about 30hrs and several sets of hardware to set up another similar network of 3 PCs (one XP, one 98se/linux, one ME). Despite all these problems, given the insanely low cost of PC hardware, I can't see any QL hardware development going anywhere. Not that I want to discourage anyone from developing hardware, but I see it essentially as a hobby with a very limited potential user base, and little prospect of paying for its development time. This puts me firmly into the emulation camp.One advantage of emulation is that I don't have such a great printer issue. All I need is the ability to store the data in a form where I can load it into native OS applications for printing (on my USB printer). For much of my needs, it is adequate to take screen shots of superbasic windows and cut and paste them into grown-up applications such as open-office. I'd be interested to know what the final split is in Tony's/Quanta's survey between more traditional hardware and the emulators. I haven't filled it in yet myself - I started, but then got frustrated and gave up - as an ex-Quanta member I feel that I should be able to fill in the Quanta related questions. Isn't anyone interested in why people leave, and what could be done to get them to rejoin? (now I've joined about 4 threads) Jeremy ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Jeremy Taffel writes: My experiences with XP are mixed. Normally I have no problems whatsoever. However I have encountered one AMD Athlon powered machine from Time which is guaranteed to have a fit any time any new USB device is attached and sometimes throws a fit when new software (eg open office) are installed. One item ( USB wireless network device) which I have had working fine on several other machines refused point blank to install properly. its difficult to know if its a hardware fault or incompabilities between various chipsets. Ive just had some problems with a new Athlon machine (CPU and memory) crashing when using certain software and drivers. It appears this could be due to the quality of the RAM installed. Until the new RAM arrives, I survive by reducing the speed of the FSB. No more crashes so far. Per ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 at 21:07:54, Dave P wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Ironically, this is more-or-less what Nasta designed as the Aurora II. My only discomfort over Nasta's design is that he is extremely concerned about efficiency of space. Therefore, he's crammed an awful lot into a very small 6-layer PCB. I would always be inclined to spread things out a bit and go for fewer layers. But that's just me - spending a bit extra on PCB to save the cost in time to shoehorn all those tracks into SUCH a small space ;) It is likely, surely, that the bigger PCB with fewer layers is cheaper. Nasta is just too efficient for his own good ;) ... but he isn't costing his time (8-)# I must say I enjoy, especially with RomDisq, in getting a small compact PCBs, and it helps increase signal integrity. I bet Nasta's design is not as 'crammed' per layer as the 2-layer RomDisq. It was quite hard finding a PCB manufacturer who could routinely handle 3mil PCB track separation. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
To develop a board for a laptop is an interesting proposition. It's about the same as the challenge of developing a board for a PC, but with additional power challenges. The QL uses such minimal power that unless we are using Coldfire this can be ignored. If a QL-replacement board with SVGA output was made in a standard form-factor and the same schematic was also laid out for a common taiwanese laptop case, this could technically work. The likely route would be to buy a stack of itentical budget laptops, and use the existing PSU/battery, HD, and CD/DVD mechanism, and just replace the motherboard. This would be cheaper than designing/buying all those items separately. This is an interesting idea. Would people be willing to pay a $400-$600 premium for a laptop? That has 1/10th the performance of if you'd left it alone and just installed QPC? Yes, if they were serious, while the laptop would be much faster than 1/10th, in fact it will be faster than QPC, while if it uses Coldfire that will bring it into the next league. Do not forget the sales on other platforms. -- Tarquin Mills It's certainly an interesting idea, although the price might make it impractical. Certainly, we don't need all the PC bells and whistles (fastest DVD drives, terabytes of hard disk and so on), so a low end laptop would probably suffice with a fast QL or Q60 type board put into it. Production runs won't be that large, so perhaps buying up cheaper end of line laptops. The idea doesn't appeal to me personally, as QPC2 would be adequate for my needs, but I can see that what might amount to a laptop Q60 (name only used to illustrate the possibilities) might well appeal to some if the price was right. As I mentioned the Q60, if something like a redesigned Q60 was slotted into a cheapish laptop with floppy drive, CD-ROM, ser and par ports and built in screen, it might well fill the kind of machine you envisage. Someone else on this list mentioned that the only really viable hardware route now is for expanding black QLs now that there is no Super Gold Card or anything like that in production. There is a logic to this argument too, especially as Nasta's design work has meant that there may be a viable one already at least partly designed. Keep talking, we may get some viable ideas out of this yet! Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 23:32:40 +, Tony Firshman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 at 19:10:03, Rich Mellor wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 13:00:34 -0600 (CST), Dave P [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip I know I could have used a serial lead but there is no longer any transfer software available to use this Of course there is. What is wrong with qtpi? That will work with any old terminal program on any platform. Have never used qtpi I must admit - now here's another possible article for Quanta if someone wants to write it.. How to use QTPI and/or transfer files between the QL and PC. I still think that Di-Ren's software was a good idea - it allowed you to use the hard disk on a PC for storage - now if that could be used to store files within a QXL.WIN file on the PC Guess you'll say just run QTPI on both the QL and from within an emulator on the PC (if user has bought a copy). ... and QuaLsoft file transfer for QL (and PC) still works. Is the QuaLsoft software public domain - can't say I remember seeing it anywhere -- Rich Mellor RWAP Services 26 Oak Road, Shelfield, Walsall, West Midlands WS4 1RQ http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 07:46:45 +, Derek Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I do not want to run Linux or Windows, so that makes the current laptops a non starter. Derek Ooh - a call for QPC 1 :-) -- Rich Mellor RWAP Services 26 Oak Road, Shelfield, Walsall, West Midlands WS4 1RQ http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Of course there is. What is wrong with qtpi? That will work with any old terminal program on any platform. Have never used qtpi I must admit - now here's another possible article for Quanta if someone wants to write it.. How to use QTPI and/or transfer files between the QL and PC. Just as Tony recovers from the Quanta questionnaire there's an ideal next job for him ;-) I still think that Di-Ren's software was a good idea - it allowed you to use the hard disk on a PC for storage - now if that could be used to store files within a QXL.WIN file on the PC Guess you'll say just run QTPI on both the QL and from within an emulator on the PC (if user has bought a copy). Sernet is probably just as viable a solution, if you can get it to connect between the machines in question. Sernet and QL-PC Fileserver must work at about the same speed (i.e. limited by serial ports) I'd have thought. Pity Qubide doesn't do QXL.WIN or you might have been able to speed up disk transfer with an IDE Iomega Zip or EZ135 drive or some such device capable of connection to QL and PC. If Duncan Neithercutt or Wolgang Lenerz are listening, could programs like QCDEZE or QXLWIN help put files into a QXL.WIN on a zip disk on a Qubide equipped QL? There was also a version of Discover which I remember Dave Walker proposing at one point for Qubides, don't know how far that got. Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Ooh - a call for QPC 1 :-) -- Rich Mellor What makes you think he wants to run DOS??? Dilwyn Jones Yeah but at least you could set up the boot sector to boot straight into QPC1 and therefore avoid seeing DOS altogether (could you not?? Or was that just QXL) ?? -- Rich Mellor Good point. During my recent XPriences I had to set my PC to boot up from CD, as the CD would not install from DOS. At one point when I totally confused myself, the PC, the CD and everything the CD intelligently loaded FreeDOS (which I didn't even know was there) and gave me the polite message I can't run without Windows. So now I know that I have something like FreeDOS on one of my CDs ;-) You might need a few things in config.sys or autoexec.bat like mouse driver, himem.sys or whatever else QPC1 might need, but I'm sure Darren has done something like this before (which is probably where else I've heard the name FreeDOS), the PC which is used ONLY for QPC1 and sod everything else! Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On 26 Nov 2004 at 10:06, Rich Mellor wrote: (...) I still think that Di-Ren's software was a good idea - it allowed you to use the hard disk on a PC for storage - now if that could be used to store files within a QXL.WIN file on the PC Guess you'll say just run QTPI on both the QL and from within an emulator on the PC (if user has bought a copy). I'm a bit confused as to what you're trying to achieve here? Copying files to/from a PC to/from a QL? Wolfgang www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On 26 Nov 2004 at 13:11, Rich Mellor wrote: (...) Basically yes - Di-rens fileserver program allowed you to use the PCs hard drive as storage for the QL - useful for backups at least - no need for a QL emulator and all the header info etc was automatically stored and retrieved when you tried to copy files back from the PC to the QL. How were the PC and the QL connected for that program? (...) Wolfgang www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 14:18:23 +0100, Wolfgang Lenerz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26 Nov 2004 at 13:11, Rich Mellor wrote: (...) Basically yes - Di-rens fileserver program allowed you to use the PCs hard drive as storage for the QL - useful for backups at least - no need for a QL emulator and all the header info etc was automatically stored and retrieved when you tried to copy files back from the PC to the QL. How were the PC and the QL connected for that program? No idea - I never owned it alas - guess a serial lead was supplied with the package -- Rich Mellor RWAP Services 26 Oak Road, Shelfield, Walsall, West Midlands WS4 1RQ http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 at 10:06:45, Rich Mellor wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 23:32:40 +, Tony Firshman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 at 19:10:03, Rich Mellor wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 13:00:34 -0600 (CST), Dave P [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip I know I could have used a serial lead but there is no longer any transfer software available to use this Of course there is. What is wrong with qtpi? That will work with any old terminal program on any platform. Have never used qtpi I must admit - now here's another possible article for Quanta if someone wants to write it.. How to use QTPI and/or transfer files between the QL and PC. Been there. It is trivial. Just a matter of connecting with a suitable lead (as for SERNET). Masses of endless discussion here and everywhere on that. The simply send a file by Zmodem. The receiving Terminal program will automatically receive and save. That is it. I still think that Di-Ren's software was a good idea - it allowed you to use the hard disk on a PC for storage - now if that could be used to store files within a QXL.WIN file on the PC Guess you'll say just run QTPI on both the QL and from within an emulator on the PC (if user has bought a copy). ... and QuaLsoft file transfer for QL (and PC) still works. Is the QuaLsoft software public domain - can't say I remember seeing it anywhere I guess it is now. I have not sold one for 10 or more years. -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 at 13:11:08, Rich Mellor wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 14:00:39 +0100, Wolfgang Lenerz [EMAIL PROTECTED] lenerz.com wrote: On 26 Nov 2004 at 10:06, Rich Mellor wrote: (...) I still think that Di-Ren's software was a good idea - it allowed you to use the hard disk on a PC for storage - now if that could be used to store files within a QXL.WIN file on the PC Guess you'll say just run QTPI on both the QL and from within an emulator on the PC (if user has bought a copy). I'm a bit confused as to what you're trying to achieve here? Copying files to/from a PC to/from a QL? Basically yes - Di-rens fileserver program allowed you to use the PCs hard drive as storage for the QL - useful for backups at least - no need for a QL emulator and all the header info etc was automatically stored and retrieved when you tried to copy files back from the PC to the QL. Ahha - you didn't mention headers. In my previous comment, I was assuming files did not need header preservation. All EXEC files would need to be zipped. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 at 13:29:46, Tarquin Mills wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Rich Mellor wrote: Basically yes - Di-rens fileserver program allowed you to use the PCs hard drive as storage for the QL - useful for backups at least - no need for a QL emulator and all the header info etc was automatically stored and retrieved when you tried to copy files back from the PC to the QL. Would be useful still for people with basic QLs (with Hermes / SuperHermes of course) who can't find a miracle hard disk and don't want to put the QL in a case... (unless someone knows of a source of external hard disks that can work with QubIDE??) I use a ROMDisq in this situation, though a new 128MB ROMDisq would solve the problem. (8-)# Technically I could make a 16mb RomDisq with the existing hardware. Unfortunately the minimum chip buy is about UKP5,000, so not on. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:252/67) +44(0)1442-828255 tony@surname.co.uk http://www.firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Fri, 26 Nov 2004, Tony Firshman wrote: ... but he isn't costing his time (8-)# If he did, the community would have been laid to rest LONG ago. I think we should all give a round of applause for Nasta... I must say I enjoy, especially with RomDisq, in getting a small compact PCBs, and it helps increase signal integrity. Indeed. The RomDisq is an external part, so it is desirable to make it fit just so. A QL-replacement board can fit a more generous form factor. I bet Nasta's design is not as 'crammed' per layer as the 2-layer RomDisq. It was quite hard finding a PCB manufacturer who could routinely handle 3mil PCB track separation. So THAT'S why your eyesight is all messed up. :) Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Derek Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Hi, I do not want to run Linux or Windows, so that makes the current laptops a non starter. Ah but you are a rare beast, Derek. Most people want to do at least one of these other things. -- Roy Wood Q Branch. 20 Locks Hill, Portslade, Sussex.BN41 2LB Tel: +44 (0) 1273 386030fax: +44 (0) 1273 430501 web : www.qbranch.demon.co.uk ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Good point. During my recent XPriences I had to set my PC to boot up from CD, as the CD would not install from DOS. Did you solve the CD problem ? It only occurred to me today that it was probably a lack of higher driver for the IDE bus that was making the CD not work. It can handle a HDD but not a CD if it is not loaded correctly. These are motherboard chipset specific. -- Roy Wood Q Branch. 20 Locks Hill, Portslade, Sussex.BN41 2LB Tel: +44 (0) 1273 386030fax: +44 (0) 1273 430501 web : www.qbranch.demon.co.uk ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Nov 26, 2004, at 1:26 AM, Tony Firshman wrote: On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 at 21:07:54, Dave P wrote: (ref: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) My only discomfort over Nasta's design is that he is extremely concerned about efficiency of space. Therefore, he's crammed an awful lot into a very small 6-layer PCB. I would always be inclined to spread things out a bit and go for fewer layers. But that's just me - spending a bit extra on PCB to save the cost in time to shoehorn all those tracks into SUCH a small space ;) It is likely, surely, that the bigger PCB with fewer layers is cheaper. http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm I would presume that he is using a couple of the layers for power and ground, which will help a lot with the higher speeds and tend to keep noise off the signals. Also, in manufacturing these days I believe in higher quantities that 6 layers isn't much more (may actually be less than) than 4 layers. jim ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Malcolm, As an alternative on your side can't you set your email program to wrap the lines for you? Both my email programs do this automatically and all the emails that I have received from this list are fitted automatically to my window width which is great! If someone forces hard stops in a line as you suggest, then when the reader gets it and if his window doesn't match the width, he ends up getting some short cutoff lines which are a bit annoying :) Cheers, jim On Nov 26, 2004, at 10:37 AM, Malcolm Cadman wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Certainly, we don't need all the PC bells and whistles (fastest DVD drives, terabytes of hard disk and so on), so a low end laptop would probably suffice with a fast QL or Q60 type board put into it. Production runs won't be that large, so perhaps buying up cheaper end of line laptops. The idea doesn't appeal to me personally, as QPC2 would be adequate for my needs, but I can see that what might amount to a laptop Q60 (name only used to illustrate the possibilities) might well appeal to some if the price was right. As I mentioned the Q60, if something like a redesigned Q60 was slotted into a cheapish laptop with floppy drive, CD-ROM, ser and par ports and built in screen, it might well fill the kind of machine you envisage. Dilwyn ... any chance of setting your line width to 70 characters. ? Like the above. When receiving your current emails they have long lines ... Probably because you are mailing from a different portable PC ? -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
RE: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
Dilwyn The simple solution is Compact flash cards. A 256MB card is only £30 in PC World - not the cheapest place either. Readers exist on : Qubide, PC and Qx0. The CF people have decided to use FAT16 format for cards upto 1 GB. I expect but dont know that zip drives under this capacity also use FAT16 as this is the Windows way. I also suspect but dont know that all the other formats like SmartMedia and XD etc also use FAT 16 upto 1 GB. The difference will lie in the reseved sectors for PC devices which my programe ignores. Anyone got an IDE multicard reader to test this on or a spare Zip drive, promise to return it? I have written software that allows me to read write and delete from the Qx0 to FAT16 formatted cards with a crap user interface. I expectthat the FAT 16 SBASIC will also work on Qubide Aurora as Qubide also supports IDE CF card readers. At the moment I am finishing the nice GUI which I decided a while ago in a moment of optimism to write using QPTR from scratch. Dont hold your breath but it will be finished, but once completed it should solve the PC to QL transfer for me and for MBs of data. If people want to go above the 1Gb limit FAT32 is not much different from FAT16 - key difference is obviously the size of pointer to FAT table sector. Duncan -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 26 November 2004 10:31 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict... Of course there is. What is wrong with qtpi? That will work with any old terminal program on any platform. Have never used qtpi I must admit - now here's another possible article for Quanta if someone wants to write it.. How to use QTPI and/or transfer files between the QL and PC. Just as Tony recovers from the Quanta questionnaire there's an ideal next job for him ;-) I still think that Di-Ren's software was a good idea - it allowed you to use the hard disk on a PC for storage - now if that could be used to store files within a QXL.WIN file on the PC Guess you'll say just run QTPI on both the QL and from within an emulator on the PC (if user has bought a copy). Sernet is probably just as viable a solution, if you can get it to connect between the machines in question. Sernet and QL-PC Fileserver must work at about the same speed (i.e. limited by serial ports) I'd have thought. Pity Qubide doesn't do QXL.WIN or you might have been able to speed up disk transfer with an IDE Iomega Zip or EZ135 drive or some such device capable of connection to QL and PC. If Duncan Neithercutt or Wolgang Lenerz are listening, could programs like QCDEZE or QXLWIN help put files into a QXL.WIN on a zip disk on a Qubide equipped QL? There was also a version of Discover which I remember Dave Walker proposing at one point for Qubides, don't know how far that got. Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Fri, 26 Nov 2004, James Hunkins wrote: I would presume that he is using a couple of the layers for power and ground, which will help a lot with the higher speeds and tend to keep noise off the signals. Also, in manufacturing these days I believe in higher quantities that 6 layers isn't much more (may actually be less than) than 4 layers. This isn't as true as you might think, but for design rather than practical reasons. 6-layer boards are usually autorouted. 4-layer boards are more likely to be hand-routed and typically are better designed as a result. 6-layer boards are about 30% more expensive than 4-layer boards even in runs of 10,000. Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
[ql-users] The hardware conflict...
There are two things making new hardware a difficult proposition. The first is that people have a hard time buying something new when their existing one is still working. The second is that a new one costs more than what they already have, and it's really hard to write off your previous investment to buy a new system with different requirements. The current situation is interesting just because almost everyone is using a novel, tweaked, string-tied machine that works as if by magic. That is something so personal and intimate that it is really hard to give that up and buy a clean, new, integrated box that does all that. Where's the charm? :) Obviously, peoples' actions show they are usually not willing to invest in a new machine (like a Q60) to replace their existing set-up, though they may buy one to supplement it. Therefore, even if new hardware were possible and affordable, I don't think it would make any difference. That's just my opinion, though. What do YOU think? Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dave P wrote: There are two things making new hardware a difficult proposition. The first is that people have a hard time buying something new when their existing one is still working. The second is that a new one costs more than what they already have, and it's really hard to write off your previous investment to buy a new system with different requirements. The current situation is interesting just because almost everyone is using a novel, tweaked, string-tied machine that works as if by magic. That is something so personal and intimate that it is really hard to give that up and buy a clean, new, integrated box that does all that. Where's the charm? :) Obviously, peoples' actions show they are usually not willing to invest in a new machine (like a Q60) to replace their existing set-up, though they may buy one to supplement it. Therefore, even if new hardware were possible and affordable, I don't think it would make any difference. That's just my opinion, though. What do YOU think? If it was a portable at reasonable price people would buy it, people would buy the Platinum card (Quanta may fund it if there is a business plan). I am looking into making a bid to the national lottery to afford the (portable) cases, other minority platform and small manufacturers could share costs. However once there is a case a QL will be needed to go in it. -- Tarquin Mills ACCUS (Anglia Classic Computer Users Society) http://www.speccyverse.me.uk/comp/accus/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Tarquin Mills wrote: If it was a portable at reasonable price people would buy it, people would buy the Platinum card (Quanta may fund it if there is a business plan). I am looking into making a bid to the national lottery to afford the (portable) cases, other minority platform and small manufacturers could share costs. However once there is a case a QL will be needed to go in it. When you say portable do you mean a laptop or PDA or something complete and self-contained, or a desktop that is self-contained, not made of thousands of bits held together with string and shaped like the International Space Station? To develop a board for a laptop is an interesting proposition. It's about the same as the challenge of developing a board for a PC, but with additional power challenges. If a QL-replacement board with SVGA output was made in a standard form-factor and the same schematic was also laid out for a common taiwanese laptop case, this could technically work. The likely route would be to buy a stack of itentical budget laptops, and use the existing PSU/battery, HD, and CD/DVD mechanism, and just replace the motherboard. This would be cheaper than designing/buying all those items separately. Would people be willing to pay a $400-$600 premium for a laptop? That has 1/10th the performance of if you'd left it alone and just installed QPC? Dave, Devil's Advocate. ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 10:46:42 -0600 (CST), Dave P [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There are two things making new hardware a difficult proposition. The first is that people have a hard time buying something new when their existing one is still working. The second is that a new one costs more than what they already have, and it's really hard to write off your previous investment to buy a new system with different requirements. The current situation is interesting just because almost everyone is using a novel, tweaked, string-tied machine that works as if by magic. That is something so personal and intimate that it is really hard to give that up and buy a clean, new, integrated box that does all that. Where's the charm? :) Obviously, peoples' actions show they are usually not willing to invest in a new machine (like a Q60) to replace their existing set-up, though they may buy one to supplement it. Therefore, even if new hardware were possible and affordable, I don't think it would make any difference. That's just my opinion, though. What do YOU think? I think this is a very valid point Dave. I am not sure what call there would be for another replacement QL system rather than add on cards. The problem we now face is that it seems unfair to produce a new add on card for the QL which would not work with the Aurora or Qx0 (the former is presumably not a problem, but the latter) If a USB or Ethernet card was created for the QL/Aurora for example, could the same drivers be used within a QL emulator and Qx0 without being re-written?? I guess there are some USB and Ethernet cards which could be used with the Qx0 now, if only the drivers existed. -- Rich Mellor RWAP Services 26 Oak Road, Shelfield, Walsall, West Midlands WS4 1RQ http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Rich Mellor wrote: problem we now face is that it seems unfair to produce a new add on card for the QL which would not work with the Aurora or Qx0 (the former is presumably not a problem, but the latter) Yes. People tend to resent developments that marginalise them, even when they have no plan of ever buying the development. They fear that future software may not run on their systems... If a USB or Ethernet card was created for the QL/Aurora for example, could the same drivers be used within a QL emulator and Qx0 without being re-written?? I guess there are some USB and Ethernet cards which could be used with the Qx0 now, if only the drivers existed. The hardware for QL ethernet was already designed by Nasta, and the work to produce it is trivial. However, drivers are the Big Issue. I do in fact have a pile of ethernet board components here bought for Nasta's design. It would be relatively cheap to produce. Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 13:00:34 -0600 (CST), Dave P [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Rich Mellor wrote: problem we now face is that it seems unfair to produce a new add on card for the QL which would not work with the Aurora or Qx0 (the former is presumably not a problem, but the latter) Yes. People tend to resent developments that marginalise them, even when they have no plan of ever buying the development. They fear that future software may not run on their systems... If a USB or Ethernet card was created for the QL/Aurora for example, could the same drivers be used within a QL emulator and Qx0 without being re-written?? I guess there are some USB and Ethernet cards which could be used with the Qx0 now, if only the drivers existed. The hardware for QL ethernet was already designed by Nasta, and the work to produce it is trivial. However, drivers are the Big Issue. I do in fact have a pile of ethernet board components here bought for Nasta's design. It would be relatively cheap to produce. Dave In that case, this sounds like a good project for Quanta funding - does ANYONE in the QL community have sufficient knowledge and expertise to develop the drivers?? One thing the QL is now severly lacking is the ability to link to other computers - anyone who has upgraded to QPC2 as their main system will know the problems that we all face in transferring all the software across. Certainly having done it one way using HD disks, I would not fancy transferring the files back across !! I know I could have used a serial lead but there is no longer any transfer software available to use this plus it is no faster than using HD disks... (hmm a lot of modern PCs no longer have parallel ports - how long will the serial port last??) -- Rich Mellor RWAP Services 26 Oak Road, Shelfield, Walsall, West Midlands WS4 1RQ http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On 25 Nov 2004 at 11:57, Dave P wrote: Dave, Devil's Advocate. Welcome to the club grin Wolfgang www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Rich Mellor wrote: In that case, this sounds like a good project for Quanta funding - does ANYONE in the QL community have sufficient knowledge and expertise to develop the drivers?? Not yet, I don't think it is. Most elements of Nasta's Aurora II design are tried and tested, but the ethernet part is completely new. I would be inclined to suggest a short run of prototype ethernet only QL-standard expansion cards to go to developers. Once the hardware exists, it becomes an option to form a working group to produce drivers and a friendly API. We're looking at a few hundred pounds for the hardware, and hundreds-thousands of hours for the drivers... Dave ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [ql-users] The hardware conflict...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dave P wrote: On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Tarquin Mills wrote: If it was a portable at reasonable price people would buy it, people would buy the Platinum card (Quanta may fund it if there is a business plan). I am looking into making a bid to the national lottery to afford the (portable) cases, other minority platform and small manufacturers could share costs. However once there is a case a QL will be needed to go in it. When you say portable do you mean a laptop or PDA or something complete and self-contained, or a desktop that is self-contained, not made of thousands of bits held together with string and shaped like the International Space Station? A true laptop, my MinisQ60 (which not as bad as the ISS) is stage one. To develop a board for a laptop is an interesting proposition. It's about the same as the challenge of developing a board for a PC, but with additional power challenges. The QL uses such minimal power that unless we are using Coldfire this can be ignored. If a QL-replacement board with SVGA output was made in a standard form-factor and the same schematic was also laid out for a common taiwanese laptop case, this could technically work. The likely route would be to buy a stack of itentical budget laptops, and use the existing PSU/battery, HD, and CD/DVD mechanism, and just replace the motherboard. This would be cheaper than designing/buying all those items separately. This is an interesting idea. Would people be willing to pay a $400-$600 premium for a laptop? That has 1/10th the performance of if you'd left it alone and just installed QPC? Yes, if they were serious, while the laptop would be much faster than 1/10th, in fact it will be faster than QPC, while if it uses Coldfire that will bring it into the next league. Do not forget the sales on other platforms. -- Tarquin Mills ACCUS (Anglia Classic Computer Users Society) http://www.speccyverse.me.uk/comp/accus/ ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
