THE SINCLAIR QL computer - Exploring the machine, some expansion cards and a dual floppy drive

Join me in this video for some exploration of this (for me) unknown machine with some extras.
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Trying to fix the non-working microdrives. The machine and floppy drives also needs some tender love and care in form of cleaning and servicing.
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[@GDLarcade]

Merry Christmas, Tommy! May 2024 bring many interesting machines to your channel.

[@Arcticretro]

Thanks, you too!

[@gertsy2000]

Have a great Christmas! I had a QL for a couple of years back in 84/85. Fun Machine.

[@Arcticretro]

Thanks. Merry Christmas!

[@warped_spacetime]

Gold Card 2 provides the wcopy command for wildcard copying. Eg, wcopy mdv1_, flp1_ copies all files from microdive 1 to floppy 1.

[@Arcticretro]

Ok, great :) Thx!

[@Mulletsrokkify]

Nice video! How about changing one of those 3.5" disks to a Gotek? I remember the QL from when I was a kid back in the '80's, know absolutely nothing about these computers, so thanks for this video!

[@horusfalcon]

This would be a neat mod, but I'd want to be able to undo it to keep the QL as period-correct as possible.

[@Arcticretro]

Gotek would probably work, I'll check it out

[@djwilduk]

An interesting machine and video. Many thanks!

[@Arcticretro]

Thanks!

[@nigelreed5920]

Great effort Tommy, take care

[@Arcticretro]

Thanks, you too!

[@snowysnowdon5584]

Great stream Tommy, I would have giving up on the Microdrives they weren't that great back in the day getting bad reviews in magazines. The floppy drives turned out nice but I think I would have used a wire wheel on a drill as apposed to the grinder. 👍

[@Arcticretro]

Agree, but I did not have one :) Thanks!

[@fragglet]

The Miracle Systems cards add more RAM but also (as I recall) upgrade the version of BASIC that's installed to add a bunch of new features

[@Arcticretro]

I'm going to explore those cards some time later, but I did not find much info about them

[@user-xs9mr1tk4v]

congratulations for the videos you make, greetings from Argentina 🙂

[@Arcticretro]

Glad you like them! Thank you so much :)

[@miked4377]

good job on the disk drives...there mitsubishis.thats pretty good drives....the ql is cool machine despite its faults...merry xmas tommy ..your mom did a great job on those xmas decorations she made for you! very nice!😊

[@Arcticretro]

Thanks, you too!

[@fcastellanos]

Nice job! Anyways, now you can replace one of the disk drives with a Gotek drive and/or you also could replace one of the microdrives with a SD-CARD reader replacement unit. This way it will be easiest to provide new software to the QL. Additionally, you can look for a Hat card to reallocate the 68008 CPU and add 512KB of RAM internally to the computer.

[@Arcticretro]

Ok, thanks :) I have a Gotek, but I did not think about that it could work on the QL.

[@tubeincompetence]

Oh.. A DatorMagazin Retro supporter as well.. Nice! :)

[@Arcticretro]

Oh yeah!

[@Taisen_Des]

Hello, Tommy. Thanks for this video. You probably already know this: A Sinclair QL was one of the first computers of Linus Torvalds. (Young Linus modified, enhanced and got quite a bit of use out of that hardware). See you soon! 👋

[@Arcticretro]

Thanks for the info!

[@blackterminal]

I have two Qls both with problems. Now ive seen yours i can see the drives are also not doing anything though i didnt try a tape in one. Both need new membranes. One has unstable rf out. One has a loose power socket. One is dented on the top one missing a side cover. I hope one day i can make one working one. The membranes are expensive for me down in New Zealand.

[@rustandmagic]

I bought a vDrive for my QL, it emulates up t 8 micro drives on an SD card and can work together with the original ones, you can even remap the original drives to other numbers and use the virtual drives on SD card as main drivers, makes everything so much easier.l

[@Arcticretro]

Thanks for the tip :)

[@TheSudsy]

I always lusted after the QL when it was announced and covered in magazines. Then I got an Amiga A1000......

[@stuartcastle2814]

I was the same, but with the a500, not the 1000. Both ultimately failed, but I think I made the right choice. I’m not knocking the QL at all, but Sir Clive was attempting to push it into a business market where, at the time, the opinion was “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”. So, in the business market, IBM had a massive head start over some bloke who built cheap computers for kids.

[@Arcticretro]

Right choice :)

[@talideon]

​@@stuartcastle2814Also, his drive to lower costs with things like the microdrive and using a 68008 essentially doomed it for business use. Even with IBM around, there was still plenty of room for Sinclair to read the room and build a machine that shipped with CP/M-68k from the get-go, a 16-bit bus so it didn't run like a arthritic tortoise, and saner storage medium.

[@weepingscorpion8739]

@@talideon It would indeed have been interesting to see a Sinclair 68k system à la the ST and Amiga. I think it would be very similar to the ST; few custom chips to keep cost down.

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

ahh, a rich kid... Sinclair QL, Amiga A1000, you somehow liked failed computers.

[@blackterminal]

I can share some information. The heatsinked 7805 has no thermal paste on it. Thats a easy fix. I also tried a switch mode 7805 replacement and found the rf output went crazy. Didnt have a monitor to see if it also effected that. I put the original 7805 back in with paste.

[@osiris1802]

I owned a QL in the early 1980ish years and I actually liked it a lot. The tape drives though are a complete nightmare and extremely unreliable. They never really worked for me. That‘s why I did use a 3.5 inch disk drive. The keyboard also was not very good but it worked. I later switched to an Atari 1040STF.

[@captaincorleone7088]

The ST was everything that Sinclair had envisioned for the QL: an affordable 16 bit computer. The QL was doomed because of too much cost cutting and arrogant decisions that hurt the machine and its prospects.

[@spacedock873]

My experience completely mirrors yours. I got a QL in 84/85 after it had been halved in price for clearance. It was the cheapest 68K processor machine I could get. The microdrives were notoriously unreliable as if they had read issues (very common) the extended seeking spun the tapes for so long that they ended up heating up with friction on the head and stretching. Once this happened they were junk. I then upgraded to an Atari 520ST when I could afford it and actually wrote my Bachelor's dissertation on it. The QL (in common with all Sinclair machines!) was very delayed and by the time it hit the market the PC had taken over the business market.

[@wimwiddershins]

Interesting and strange machine. Those tape drives look like horrible little buggers.

[@Arcticretro]

Not very good...

[@fragglet]

I had a QL as a kid and can confirm they are terrible

[@GSimpsonOAM]

I used my QL as everyday computer from 1989 to 1996 and only ever lost one file (which was backed up). I found them reliable.

[@wskinnyodden]

What about the +3 with a 3" Disk drive?

[@Arcticretro]

Wish I had one :)

[@chaoticsystem2211]

The decision maker would have helped to make a decision not to get a computer with those tiny tapes :D

[@Arcticretro]

:-)

[@pe1dnn]

You most likely destroyed a lot of Microdrive cassettes in this episode. Never run them with the original foam pads because these pads have for sure disintegrated and at this point, by now it is just dust in the shape of a pad. You can try it with one, if you just slightly touch it with a pencil you will see the pad will fall apart immediately leaving nothing but dust. Therefor always replace the pads, even if they look good, they are not. In the video you wonder where a part of the foam pad went, well it went inside the cartridge, dragged in there by the tape. If you look carefully at your footage, you see a part of the foam is still visibly sticking to the tape. Therefor never run the cassette when the old foam pad is still there. When the foam particles get inside, the endless loop mechanism will jam, and you already had one of these as well where you noticed the tape was folded. At that point the cassette is destroyed because you can't fix and clean the inside.

[@Arcticretro]

Thanks for the insight.

[@congestiontv]

Yeah, I think easy to be seen on a mgnified video than by the naked eye. At least the floppy worked and I was shown a to me completely unknown era of computers. Nice, thank you Tommy.

[@blackterminal]

I think music in the background while you talk is annoying. But thanks for the video.