ScuzzBlog: Diaries June 2018
Entry 4th June 2018: Post: 2: QL
Sinclair - QL
Never used one of these and really don't have any inclination to
do so. I sense that at the end of the Sinclair era the great man
had kinda lost it a bit. Sadly for me that brought into question
much of what had gone on before. I felt by the time that I got to
the +2 era and the Sugar that was Amstrad the whole Sinclair range
of computers were an utter shambles. Not Clive's fault you might
think but sorry, this guy was trying to flog a small car to the
punters instead of focussing on that which was way more important.
And so to the QL.... I know absolutely zero about it, but if it
as well built as the Spectrum+ models which it seems to get its
styling from then I doubt the thing even works. None of the later
Spectrum's from this era work for me. They all have failures of some
form or another. Sinclair's quality control was sadly lacking. It
took Amstrad to finally give the Sinclair range of computers the
thing it most needed, and that was reliable tape and disk storage.
The Microdrive was just another bonkers idea of Sinclair that was
doomed to failure.
This is not to say I don't have issue with Amstrad's drives, but only
cus of the age of the kit and the issue with rubber bands. Thing is
they are easily fixed. Trouble with the Spectrum without a dedicated
tape is that its a crap shoot as to whether your tape drive will
actually work with the Spectrum. And there is nothing more frustrating
than the loss of all your data when the tape don't work.
So I will not fire up the QL cus I really don't want that sad feeling
when the thing don't work. And if it does I have no idea what I would
do with the it, what with no ready interchangeable media built in.
It really is a glorified Spectrum+. What Clive needed was the great
' Woz ' to keep his feet on the ground and maybe put the Spectrum in
a much needed MSX or C64C style case with a proper keyboard.
Sinclair QL or Quantum Leap made in 1984
Uses Sinclair Super BASIC
Keyboard is a pseudo full stroke
The CPU is a Motorola MC 68008 running at 7.5 MHz
RAM is 128 KB up to 728 KB and VRAM 32 KB, ROM 48 KB
From the guy that had it all and then threw it all away. Weird.
Bit of scuzz trivia but I once won an auction for a ZX80 and met up
with a guy in Portsmouth. He was a keen gamer and whilst there was
responsible for me getting interested in Warcraft. He also sold me
a QL and yet we spent like an hour talking about online gaming.
Sums up the QL. We had a good chat about the ZX80 cus he had been
a keen Sinclair fan. But obviously lost interest by the time of the QL.
Been in its box ever since and that was like September 2005.
The Sinclair QL
I do have another one of these in deep storage
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