New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

Fully loaded Sinclair QL system on Trademe which I'm sure you've all seen.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Vint ... 330777.htm

One weakness in these machines was the keyboard membrane, which would turn brittle and stop working after a while. I note this one has a spare one, although who knows how old it is.

At $150 reserve it's not that cheap but you get everything. I'd be snatching it if I didn't already have one.

It's the software I find interesting - Area Radar Controller (Gatwick)
-> http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/039/qlsoft.htm
-> http://www.rwapadventures.com/ql_wiki/index.php?title=Area%20Radar%20Controller

and the ZX Spectrum+ auction title - (Heathrow) Air Traffic Control (Mikro-Gen)
-> http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/039/htsquad.htm <-- great read

If I hadn't bought a couple of custom modded QLs a wee while ago on a whim and a buy now I'd be interested in the auction. Haven't tried them yet but the boards were put into PC cases and HDDs and FDDs chucked in. I doubt any of it goes now, but one can hope.

Last two QLs sold for I think $100 (computer & little else) & $200 (with extras) respectively.

As a computer the QL is certainly an eccentric beast. I'm interested to hear someone put it in a standard PC case and added those extras. I'd be interested to see photos of the internals of the machine if you ever get to pull it out Clinton.

I guess special driver software was needed for the hard and floppy disk yes?

Fortunately there are only two other computers stacked on top of where the QLs are kept. So I took them out for a few photos (but quite a bit of blur going on).

http://picasaweb.google.com/clinton.rowe/RetroweMuseumSinclairQL#

The pictures so far are unlabelled and are a mixture of pictures taken by the original owners and some by myself last night.

The bigger case is "JamesCo Electronics Mail Order Electronics Worldwide".
Inside was a Miracle Systems midi card, Miracle Systems Expanderam, a Cumana CU1635 Iss 1 (along lines of http://www.clive.nl/storage/disk-interface-qjump-cumana-cu-1635-sinclair-ql), a PC-08 Keyboard card, expansion frame, and SPEM QEPROM card.

The slim cased one has a CST Q+4 interface (Cambridge Systems 1985), an expanderam, keyboard interface, the thing sticking out the back is what the HDD/FDDs connect to, SPEM QEPROM card (? ( http://rwapadventures.com/ql_wiki/index.php?title=QL%20System/2%20SPEM&lang=) ) , some other card I don't know (in last picture on right side).

I would need to ask the original owners re running the hard & floppy disk drives and I will take a picture of the keyboards if I find my phone charger.

Thanks for those images Clinton,

Interestingly I was talking to a Danish guy last night who said he was involved in a small company (in Denmark) that specialised in putting QL motherboards in PC cases in the mid-late 1980s!