{"id":1399,"date":"2019-03-13T07:59:34","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T06:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/?p=1399"},"modified":"2019-03-13T18:15:59","modified_gmt":"2019-03-13T17:15:59","slug":"beyond-super-gold-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/beyond-super-gold-card\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Super Gold Card"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Almost everybody already\nknows that the quite famous Tetroid has created new interfaces and boards, even\ncloning (and to a certain extent improving) the milestone \u201cmother of all\nexpansions\u201d: the <em>Super Gold Card<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the wave of this big boost,\nrecently in the international Forum&nbsp; <em>(www.qlforum.co.uk)<\/em>\nwe\u2019ve already seen the rise of hypotheses about a worthy successor to this\nexcellent board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Between words and deeds\nthere is surely a big gap; anyway this need exists, and in this case it&#8217;s not\nabout mere fantasy, but by now feasible hypotheses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to some, at this\npoint it would be more convenient to redesign the whole QL motherboard; anyway,\nleaving aside the most obvious features (more RAM etc.), the ones which emerged\nmore times are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Standard video port \u201cby popular\ndemand\u201d (VGA at least);<\/li><li>video adapter (640&#215;480 \u2013 800&#215;600\n@ 256 colors);<\/li><li>PS2 mouse\/keyboard port;<\/li><li>double SD card reader;<\/li><li>OS load from SD card;<\/li><li>some decent sound (AY chip or\nother).<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some argue that there is\nalready the Q68, and in a sense it&#8217;s true. The Q68 is a great stand-alone\nmachine, compact and with great potential. Nevertheless here it&#8217;s about\nsomething quite different, in the sense that what is really lacking seems to be\nsomething radically new <em>for<\/em> the QL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the way, it&#8217;s ongoing\nthe assessment of the feasibility of a simple kit (for which a first scheme has\nalready been proposed) to enable the insertion of Q68 into a QL, replacing the\nmotherboard. This would be to the advantage of all those who prefer to maintain\na certain design and retro emotions. The only quite difficult aspect would be\nthe keyboard management. So, also this project apparently supports the need for\nsomething which is not external but that can be placed <em>into the QL case<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Someone pointed out that\nthe only flaw in this project are the Q68 speed restrictions, and this should\nnot be underestimated; indeed also this is being discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here below are other\nimportant subjects:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Several concrete approaches, also quite cheap and feasible, have been proposed in order to make real this (if I may use that term) <em>\u201cHyper-Goldcard2\u201d<\/em>; each one has its pros and cons, and the discussion has been quite vibrant.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The\nneed for a brand new motherboard is real, but for the moment the expansion\nboard option seems more attractive\/feasible.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Also\nsome well-experienced and fully satisfied Q68 owner thinks that what is truly\nneeded is indeed an expansion board like Super Goldcard, but it would be\ncrucial to have a fair, reliable and simple video port, that&#8217;s finally <em>standard<\/em>.\nAnd some extra color would be very nice.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The dialog proceeded with remarks made by Nasta and other \u201cgurus\u201d; then the topics became more and more technical and complex. For anyone who wants to deepen, I suggest to refer to the Forum directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Such new ideas can only benefit the QL scene. Naturally, there&#8217;s no assurance this project will become real; but since overall the discussion has been vibrant from the beginning, and remarks made by various \u201cgurus\u201d have been frequent, I think we can say that the preconditions are positive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost everybody already knows that the quite famous Tetroid has created new interfaces and boards, even cloning (and to a certain extent improving) \n<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/beyond-super-gold-card\/\"> [..more...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hunggartorino.it\/ql\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}