26 Mar
2002
26 Mar
'02
2:30 a.m.
> It sold for \pounds 399 in the UK.
Yup, paid my money ...and waited...and waited! Worth it in the end.
My view is that had it sold for \pounds 600 or so and
had a real disk
drive, real serial ports, and a useable keyboard then it might have sold
rather better in the UK.
Maybe they should have had a 'professional'
version with an
external keyboard and disk drives, to satisfy both markets.
Anyway, history.
Can't remember - did Sinclair license the technology to ICL and *cough* BT?
Would the Merlin Tonto and ICL OPD (one per desk) have covered off the
professional market perhaps?
For those of us that were serious about computing, that didn't have access
to the kind of money a PC or Mac cost, the QL was a godsend. 68k assembler
was a bit of a jmp after Z80 though!
//Rich
26 Mar
26 Mar
2:59 a.m.
> My view is that had it sold for \pounds 600 or so
and had a real disk
> drive, real serial ports, and a useable keyboard then it might have sold
> rather better in the UK.
>Maybe they should have had a 'professional' version with an
>external keyboard and disk drives, to satisfy both markets.
>Anyway, history.
Can't remember - did Sinclair license the
technology to ICL and *cough* BT?
Would the Merlin Tonto and ICL OPD (one per desk) have covered off the
professional market perhaps?
I guess today this would be called 'embedded market'. A OPD is still
a top issue on my want list.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
3:13 p.m.
At 13:59 26/03/2002, you wrote:
I've seen two pass through eBay in recent months - both went for silly
money (and I didn't win either of them :( )
--
Cheers, Ade.
Be where it's at, B-Racing!
http://b-racing.com
> My view
is that had it sold for \pounds 600 or so and had a real disk
> drive, real serial ports, and a useable keyboard then it might have sold
> rather better in the UK.
>Maybe they should have had a 'professional' version with an
>external keyboard and disk drives, to satisfy both markets.
>Anyway, history.
Can't remember - did Sinclair license the
technology to ICL and *cough* BT?
Would the Merlin Tonto and ICL OPD (one per desk) have covered off the
professional market perhaps?
I guess today this would be called 'embedded market'. A OPD is still
a top issue on my want list. 
7:19 a.m.
Richard.Sandwell(a)roebry.co.uk wrote:
Can't remember - did Sinclair license the
technology to ICL and *cough* BT?
Would the Merlin Tonto and ICL OPD (one per desk) have covered off the
professional market perhaps?
The ICL One Per Desk! The name tells you just how many they thought
they'd sell. I have one, bought at a junk shop in Bath, and here's
a (not very good) photo:
http://www.gifford.co.uk/~coredump/opd.htm
Note the phone handset on the left-hand side and the two phone cords.
--
John Honniball
coredump(a)gifford.co.uk
3:37 p.m.
At 18:19 26/03/2002, you wrote:
Richard.Sandwell(a)roebry.co.uk wrote:
Well - there's an awful lot of desks out there, and they've mostly got
telephones on them. Many also have computers...
Can't fault the logic...
Can't remember - did Sinclair license the
technology to ICL and *cough* BT?
Would the Merlin Tonto and ICL OPD (one per desk) have covered off the
professional market perhaps?
The ICL One Per Desk! The name tells you just how many they thought
they'd sell. John Honniball
Not THE John Honniball, formerly of Miracle Systems?
--
Cheers, Ade.
Be where it's at, B-Racing!
http://b-racing.com
3:13 p.m.
At 13:30 26/03/2002, you wrote:
Yup.
> It sold
for \pounds 399 in the UK.
Yup, paid my money ...and waited...and waited! Worth it in the end.
My view is that had it sold for \pounds 600 or so
and had a real disk
drive, real serial ports, and a useable keyboard then it might have sold
rather better in the UK.
Maybe they should have had a
'professional' version with an
external keyboard and disk drives, to satisfy both markets.
Anyway, history.
Can't remember - did Sinclair license the technology to ICL and *cough* BT? Would the Merlin Tonto and ICL OPD (one per desk) have
covered off the
professional market perhaps?
No - the ICL OPD was a niche product, designed for telephony (e.g.
reception work, possibly telesales - although I'm not sure if "telesales"
really existed in the mid '80s).
The pro market was sort of catered for by the Thor, started as a QL in a
big beige box with a beige monitor and XT-style keyboard. It moved on quite
rapidly, eventually becoming an accomplished 68000 (not 68008) machine with
an improved OS (SMS/Q - still alive & well today). Unfortunately, the Thor
was too late - the IBM PC had already begun to claim dominance, primarily
due to the rapidly emerging clone market.
For those of us that were serious about computing, that
didn't have access
to the kind of money a PC or Mac cost, the QL was a godsend. 68k assembler
was a bit of a jmp after Z80 though!
More of a JMP.L, surely? :) (Actually, it may be JUMP.L, I forget now...)
--
Cheers, Ade.
Be where it's at, B-Racing!
http://b-racing.com
4:26 p.m.
Adrian Vickers wrote:
The pro market was sort of catered for by the Thor,
started as a QL in a
big beige box with a beige monitor and XT-style keyboard. It moved on quite
rapidly, eventually becoming an accomplished 68000 (not 68008) machine with
an improved OS (SMS/Q - still alive & well today). Unfortunately, the Thor
was too late - the IBM PC had already begun to claim dominance, primarily
due to the rapidly emerging clone mark
Lets not forget the 68008 was a slow chip because all instructions on
the 68000 was 2 or 4 or 6 bytes long and the 68008 only had a 8 bit
buss. The 68000 I think too used a 8 x clock so the real clock speed is
a lot slower than it seems.
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
11:16 p.m.
At 03:26 27/03/2002, you wrote:
Adrian Vickers wrote:
Quite correct. It actually makes it an ideal hobbyist processor - simpler
bus interface, etc. It was also quite a bit cheaper, IIRC, than the 68000
when new.
The pro market was sort of catered for by the
Thor, started as a QL in a
big beige box with a beige monitor and XT-style keyboard. It moved on quite
rapidly, eventually becoming an accomplished 68000 (not 68008) machine with
an improved OS (SMS/Q - still alive & well today). Unfortunately, the Thor
was too late - the IBM PC had already begun to claim dominance, primarily
due to the rapidly emerging clone mark
Lets not forget the 68008 was a slow chip because all instructions on
the 68000 was 2 or 4 or 6 bytes long and the 68008 only had a 8 bit
buss. The 68000 I think too used a 8 x clock so the real
clock speed is
a lot slower than it seems.
I'm not sure about clock speeds. I'm pretty sure the QL's is 4MHz or
thereabouts, BICBW.
--
Cheers, Ade.
Be where it's at, B-Racing!
http://b-racing.com
27 Mar
27 Mar
2:03 a.m.
New subject: 68008 Speed (was: QL-Quality (Was: ZX-81 Question))
> The pro market was sort of catered for by the
Thor, started as a QL in a
> big beige box with a beige monitor and XT-style keyboard. It moved on quite
> rapidly, eventually becoming an accomplished 68000 (not 68008) machine with
> an improved OS (SMS/Q - still alive & well today). Unfortunately, the Thor
> was too late - the IBM PC had already begun to claim dominance, primarily
> due to the rapidly emerging clone mark
Lets not forget the 68008 was a slow chip because all
instructions on
the 68000 was 2 or 4 or 6 bytes long and the 68008 only had a 8 bit
buss.
Right, still the difference wasn't that big. Basicly all word (16 Bit)
acces times had a 4 cycle penalty (including the opcode fetch) against
the 68000, and als long (32 Bit) had a 8 cycle slowdown. Now it depended
heavy on the kind of programm you had. For most common instruction
types with memory access 12 to 50% more cycles where needed. So in
worst case a 68008 did bring only 65% of a straight 68000. In praxis
the QL was about 20%-25% slower than an Atari ST (Keep in mind, the
QL was 7.5 MHz while the Atari was 8 MHz - that's aleady 6% less).
The 68000 I think too used a 8 x clock so the real
clock speed is
a lot slower than it seems.
Which still doesn't matter, than it's the same over the whole
family. And I think noone on this list is unexperianced enough
to judge just by the frequengy of the used oscilator.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
2:53 a.m.
New subject: 68008 Speed (was: QL-Quality (Was: ZX-81 Question))
Yes ... the TMS 9900 used a 48MHz oscillator, IIRC.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hans Franke" <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 6:03 AM
Subject: 68008 Speed (was: QL-Quality (Was: ZX-81 Question))
> > The pro market was sort of catered for by
the Thor, started as a QL in a
<snip>
<
the QL was about 20%-25% slower than an Atari ST (Keep
in mind, the
QL was 7.5 MHz while the Atari was 8 MHz - that's aleady 6% less).
The 68000 I think too used a 8 x clock so the
real clock speed is
a lot slower than it seems.
Which still doesn't matter, than it's the same over the whole
family. And I think noone on this list is unexperianced enough
to judge just by the frequengy of the used oscilator.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
4:32 a.m.
New subject: 68008 Speed (was: QL-Quality (Was: ZX-81 Question))
Hans Franke wrote:
Which still doesn't matter, than it's the same
over the whole
family. And I think noone on this list is unexperianced enough
to judge just by the frequengy of the used oscilator.
True ... but nobody every states the memory cycle speed and width the
real limiting factor. A 2 Mhz 6809 could have been a bit faster than the
68008. ( A big fan of the 6809 and OS/9 for it)
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
6:13 a.m.
New subject: Writing Assistant
I have a very old copy of IBM Writing assistant that a friend is trying to
install on an equally old computer so that they can read and then convert
some important files. While trying to install the software it says you have
used up your five copies, buy another copy. The software can no longer be
purchased and it is important to recover the files.
Does anybody know what may need to be modified on the disk so that it can
be installed one more time?
8154
days inactive
8155
days old
11 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
avickers＠solutionengineers.com -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
coredump＠gifford.co.uk -
edick＠idcomm.com -
gehrich＠tampabay.rr.com -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
Richard.Sandwell＠roebry.co.uk