{"id":1362,"date":"2019-07-20T08:43:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-20T06:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2019-07-20T21:04:56","modified_gmt":"2019-07-20T19:04:56","slug":"ql-workstation-how-i-did-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/ql-workstation-how-i-did-it\/","title":{"rendered":"QL workstation, how I did it :-)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\nQL\nBox & QL Work Station<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing 30 years after about things made 30 years ago (\u2026) this suddenly made me aware of the whole amount of time that has passed. After Giorgio has asked me to write about QL Work Station<\/em>, to revive the memory of how that object originated and had been built, I had to take up everything I archived and kept, and review it calmly for some days. Magazines, brochures, manuals and some photos and video footages are that archived objects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nPLACES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nRemembering those years recalled me also\nimages of the typical QL-sites which I was used to frequent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPlaces like \u201cNuova Newel\u201d in Mac Mahon\nstreet, where I purchased my QL and where it was possible to find\nplenty of hardware add-ons and softwares, not only for the QL, but\nalso for almost all popular personal and home computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nEntering that premises it was possible to\nsee flanked \u2013 inordinately \u2013 Spectrums, QLs, Amigas, Commodore\n64s, VICs and various Ataris, as well as a number of magazines and\nsoftware cassettes, floppies and, yes, also microdrives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPlaces\nlike \u201cHex Electronic\u201d at 16 Jenner avenue, another popular\nreseller located in a four-windows shop, who sold much of what was\navailable on the market at that time for Sinclair computers,\nincluding Sandy interfaces. There I bought the SuperQBoard and\nThru-Con-Ram expansions I installed in the first version of my QL-WS<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nA\nthird decisive place for me was \u201cDelta Elettronica\u201d in Valparaiso\nstreet. It had nothing to do with the QL, but being one of the most\nwell-known retailers of electronic components in Milan, it had the\nsame function that today the specialized online sales websites have.\nAn extremely well-equipped place, well known, easily accessible and\nable to quickly provide even parts that are difficult to find.\nThrough that shop I was able to find some of the components that I\nneeded to make Paolo’s QL-Box<\/em>\nfirst, and then my Work\nStation<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a big city nothing remains the same for a long time; so today, in the corner of the building where Newel was, now there is a doors\/windows retailer and a mover. Instead of \u201cHex Electronic\u201d there is a diner bar, and in place of \u201cDelta\u201d a bank branch. Faded physically but not in my memory, I kept many of their price lists. In Italian lire<\/em> of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nBEFORE\nTHE QL the MSX<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe\nQL was not my first computer. In 1985 I bought a Sony HB 75P MSX with\nan attached SDC 500 cassette player. Like all Sony products, they\nwere ergonomic, aesthetically neat and awfully expensive. At first\nthe curiosity and the novelty of that programmable electronic object\nintrigued me, but its great limits became immediately evident. I used\nit for a year and then I sold it. Through an ad on \u201cSecondamano\u201d\n[translator\u2019s\nnote: \u201cSecond hand\u201d]<\/em>,\nI found a buyer to whom I sold it, getting a good part of what was\nneeded to buy the QL. Of that machine I still have, well preserved,\nseveral compact cassettes containing the first programs I wrote in\nMSX Basic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nQL-BOX<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nConcerning\nthe QL-Box<\/em>,\nthe first partial hardware transformation for a QL carried out by\nPaolo Vanni and me, here is my brief description about its origin as\nit was, with a few years in advance, the prototype of the WS<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPaolo bought his QL (AH ROM) in 1984, not\nlong after it had been presented and marketed. Almost immediately, it\nalso purchased the memory expansion and the disk interface for the\nbrand new 3.5 inch floppy discs recently introduced by Sony; but also\nrealizing the mess that flying cables and external hardware generated\nonce connected around the computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAt that time we had been knowing each other\nfor almost ten years, and it was common for us to be at one\u2019s or\nthe other\u2019s home. After some months watching him using his QL\nsurrounded by power supplies, floppy drives and ugly as well as\nunsafe wires and flat cables, I suggested him to gather all that mess\nin a single container. Paolo liked the idea. Knowing my experience as\na plastic models enthusiast, together with the capability of shaping\nand working plastic panels with precision, he asked me to create the\nnew container. We decided together the shape and arrangement of its\ncontents. Among the various types of plastic available, for greater\nworkability and lower cost I chose PoliVinilCloride as the\nconstituent material of the panels of what would become a\nparallelepiped-shaped black case. Making it with Plexiglass, a\nmaterial of greater value but also more expensive and fragile which I\nutilized at work every day, seemed to me a little exaggerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nInside\nthe case we inserted the power supply for the QL, the one for the\ndisk drive and the drive itself, limiting the cables connected to the\ncomputer and around the desk to the power supply wire and to the flat\ncable for the floppy disks (in addition to the monitor cable,\nobviously). Since “the box” would have remained next to the\nQL, I conformed to its aesthetics by painting the six sides with an\nopaque black spray painting, and engraving through a pantograph the\nfront panel with the characteristic horizontal lines of the Sinclair\nproducts along its entire length, adding the QL-BOX logo. On the same\npanel I fixed two switches also. The first for turning on the QL and\nthe second for the floppy drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having substantially worked only on the aesthetics of the QL + Peripheral system, without intervening on any electronic part, there were no problems, and once completed the assembly everything worked without difficulty. It was 1985. My same MSX year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nQL\nWORK STATION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nMy Work Station, a couple of years later,\nwas a bit different matter. Although I found appreciable the work\ndone for my friend, that \u201ccompaction\u201d level was not enough for my\nneeds. Based on that experience, I realized that we could go further\nand, together with the peripherals, put the entire computer inside\nthe container, leaving only the keyboard outside. The same practical\nform factor that was now widespread in PCs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn my previous Sales Management article\nI\u2019ve already described part of the technical problems concerning\nelectronics, which I had to face and solve in order to finally\nrealize the Work Station, therefore I will not repeat it. Here I\ndwell on the part concerning the construction of the case structure\nand the keyboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAs you can see from the attached photos,\nthe panels of the case are held together by four screws each.\nSelf-tapping screws that attach to an aluminum corner frame. The\nstability of the assembly is obtained by the combination of the frame\nand the rigidity given by the 5mm thickness of the PVC panels once\nscrewed to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe\npower supply units are insulated and fixed on a little plastic panel\neach, and risen from the lower base of the container. The QL PSU,\nknown to be subject to overheating, was removed from its case leaving\nit free to dissipate its heat. Being the most thermally critical\nelement it was placed so that it had space around itself, providing\nin the same place ventilation grids on the side and top panels. Grids\nwere also present above the heatsink near the microdrive units, and\nbeside and above the Gold Card. The QL and Gold Card boards are fixed\nto PVC shelves, in turn fixed with aluminum corners cut to size. The\ntwo floppy drives are side by side, below the QL motherboard, and\nthey are also screwed onto little PVC panels. The reason why power\nsupplies and floppy drives are not fixed directly to the lower base\nof the container, but on separate bases (the floppy drives also are\nplaced on a rubber support) relates to the need for air circulation\naround the whole component, besides neutralizing the transmission of\nvibrations to the rest of the computer, separating each unit from the\nmain structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The front and rear panels of the container are the only ones to follow the aesthetic horizontal lines pattern of the original QL, and were obtained by pantograph milling. Eight rectangular holes have been made on the front panel. Two of them for mounting the power switches (QL and floppy drives), two for the floppy drives buttons, two for accessing the microdrive mechanics, and two for the small rectangular LEDs of those microdrives. The microdrives, just for the record, stopped working already during assembly inside the case. Which I didn’t worry about so much, given the presence of the much more reliable and capable floppy drives. The “Missoni” reset button, located to the right of the machine, can be pressed through one of the ventilation slots on the right. Data and video communication connections have been moved from the motherboard to the rear panel DE9, DB25, Din, RCA and Jack sockets through extension cables. A mains filter and a fuse are cascaded upstream in order to electrically protect the entire machine. The filter is integrated into the panel socket where the power cord plugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE\nKEYBOARD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had to face the bulk of the construction process when I made the keyboard (peripheral device whose manufacture was absolutely unexpected). Initially I was going to buy a keyboard and then connect it to the computer. In a well-known flea market located in the Navigli area here in the city, I got for small change a physically intact but non-functioning keyboard from an XT PC. I opened it and replicated the circuitry layout of the QL keyboard. At first it seemed to work. A shame, though, it generated electrical signals slightly different from those expected by Intel 8049 processor (appinted to manage the keyboard), crashing it and causing to generate an uncontrolled amount of characters on screen when pressed the corresponding key. Anyway, I used that keyboard for a while, trying to understand if it would be possible to fix the problem, but, in the absence of more complete information, I realized that it was not worth losing more time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nUnable\nto use the XT keyboard, and not without some hesitancy due to the\nfair complexity of the task, I decided on my own motion that the best\nsolution was to manufacture from scratch the entire (evil)\nperipheral, while maintaining the color and design of the QL and its\nnew case. At home I had another keyboard (until then used only for\ntesting) got by disassembling it from a bulky computer terminal from\nthe 70s. One of those old-styled with high and thick keys. Not very\nelegant keys, but I was sure they worked well and without the\nbouncing effect of the XT keyboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I began the work of general design and shaping of the pieces using the same type and thickness of PVC utilized for the case (this time white instead of gray). It took several days to individually build all the pieces necessary for the “body” assembling. However, making the outer shell was only a part of the job. Inside that shell a solid frame had to be inserted, in order to support the mechanical parts of the keys, keeping them firmly in place once positioned. It was then necessary to make all the electrical connections between the keys themselves, to replicate the mapping of the original QL keyboard and, last but not least, to make two cables from scratch (again!). The first cable to connect the keyboard to the computer through female DB25 connectors on both ends. And the second, positioned inside the case of the computer itself, to carry the signals coming from the keys to the motherboard, from another DB25 (male) fixed on the lower base of the main case, in correspondence of a rectangular opening made for this purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The solderings made in those days were really numerous, and each one checked immediately with the multimeter to be sure it wasn’t a cold one. I made the last twenty solderings of the series on two small copper-plated bases, shaped, engraved and adequately thinned before, in order to be inserted in the slots on the QL motherboard, in place of the thin ribbon connectors of the (infamous) original keyboard membrane. The icing on the cake was \u201cdiscovering\u201d that the keycaps of the original QL were perfectly compatible with the X-shaped keycap pillars from the recycled XT keyboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was not the only icing on the cake. The QL has a Caps Lock button to enable upper case letters. As known, it doesn\u2019t have a LED signaling its condition (has it been pressed or not?). One of the buttons recovered from the aforementioned terminal was double-acting. At the first pressing it remained down. At the second one it came back up. I placed it at the Right Shift position. Thus, even without a LED, when that key is pressed, it signals the activation of capital letters remaining visibly lowered. Completed and perfect!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nAT\nTHE END OF THIS STORY…<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of 1988 I finally had my new QL ready (and above all working). Almost two years had passed from the first evaluation on how to realize that transformation after the QL-Box<\/em> prototype, until the concrete accomplishment. Two years spent putting together information, finding the necessary components and building it a little bit at a time. During that time I asked some information about the bus-cable to \u201cHex Electronic\u201d, whose technicians warned me about the lability of the signals on the QL expansion port. One of the reasons why all QL interfaces were connected to the computer without extensions. For other questions, I contacted \u201cDelta Elettronica\u201d. Meanwhile, a professional electronic friend of mine also gave me some help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\nThe\nWS<\/em>\nhad two versions. The first, based on the Sandy expansions and\ninterfaces and with two 720K floppy drives, was active from 1988 to\n1991. The second and final one, based on the Miracle Gold Card and\nthe attached 4 Mbytes floppy drives, was a modification of version 1\nin 1991. The different size of the Mitsubishi floppy drives,\ncompared to one of the previous two (the Panasonic JU-363 drive),\nresulted in the visible resizing of one of the two relative apertures\non the WS<\/em>\nfront panel. Since the beginning the size of the case was designed to\nalso contain a 3.5 inch HDD, when it would have been possible to\nconnect one to the QL; and, for the record, after skipping the\nstandard ST disk interface from Miracle Systems, I was tempted to\ntake Nastasic’s QBide when it was presented. I gave up not only for a\nreason of costs, but also because, after all, the ED floppies I could\nuse with the Mitsubishi drives attached to the GoldCard, proved to be\nadequate for my storage needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n…ONE\nLAST CONSIDERATION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWho\nknows the evolution of the QL and of all its hardware that different\nmanufacturers have proposed on the market since the early days of its\ncommercialization, with hindsight, will have noticed that I could\navoid to make some changes, or that some components I made and\n\u201cinvented myself\u201d for my QL\nWork Station<\/em>\nwere already available at the time of its realization. To be clear,\nI’m talking about expansion buses, keyboard interfaces, various\nthird-party keyboards, enclosures, and so on. Why didn’t I use \/ buy\nthem? Well\u2026 first because, as I wrote elsewhere, the Internet was\nstill science fiction, QL Wiki was far from existing, and the only\ninformation sources to learn about the existence of those parts were,\napart from word-of-mouth, British magazines which here in Italy,\nalthough present, were not so abundant. Secondly, even if I had\nknowledge of their presence, those add-ons, to be bought in sterling,\nwere not so cheap. If you had been in my shoes, and knowing to be\nable to make what you need saving money (in addition to having fun\nand learning in the meantime), what would have you done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTwo\nmore words about the pictures accompanying this text. Some were taken\nat the time of the initial construction and in the first years of\nuse, but most of them are recent, and document the appearance of case\nand internal components layout. I hope they are sufficient and\nexplanatory of the object and the work done on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I knew right from the start that radically modifying a computer designed inside a “keyboard” would have been a very difficult and demanding job, even if at first I didn’t think to push myself that far. What is certain is that after having faced and completed it, I had the satisfaction of using the product of that “madness” for many years and with profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Antonio Gareffa<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"QL Box & QL Work Station Writing 30 years after about things made 30 years ago (\u2026) this suddenly made me aware of \n [..more...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":236,"featured_media":1366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senza-categoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/236"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527,"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions\/1527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}