Sickness and Sillyness
Jul. 16th, 2004 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lostcarparkI'm off work since yesterday with some sort of cold-type bug that had me coughing and sneezing, with one of those nasty sore troats.
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ramtops's link to a PC in a cow project has got me thinking. There's a lot of people who've built PCs in old computer cases using some of the tiny motherboards you can get nowadays. This makes me wonder if it would be possible to fit a fully functional PC inside a Sinclair QL case from 1984.
It wouldn't be easy. Many old cases are relatively easy to use because old components were big and chunky. But Sinclair was a genius when it came to reducing everything, and the QL fits everything in the space under a keyboard smaller than an average PC. The actual measurments are 138 x 46 x 472mm, so a standard mini-ITX motherboard at 170x170mm is out of the question. However, VIA have started producing Nano-ITX boards that are only 120x120mm, which should fit the bill (though I haven't been able to determine if height will be a problem). There are also slot loading CD/DVD drives which at 128 x 129 x 13mm should be possible to fit into the space of the old sinclair Microdrives. Fitting a hard drive into the remaining space should be a doddle. Depending on how space works out, I might have to accept an external power supply.
It would be nice to use as many of the original ports as possible. The QL was rather non-standard in its choice of ports, but it does leave a good selection of holes at the back I can use. It used BT phone jacks for joystick and serial ports, which should be just about right for USB, firewire, and maybe even network sockets with a little filing. The old video out was a DIN connector, which will need to be enlarged to take VGA. There are even 3.5mm jack sockets that were originally used for networking but should do nicely for sound. It's concievable a printer port would fit through the external ROM slot, though I doubt the motherboard will have one.
Which leaves only one problem outstanding. The Sinclair keyboard is definitely not PS2 compatible, and plugging in an external keyboard would spoil the whole thing. The QL keyboard is connected to the QL motherboard by two ribbon cables with a grid arrangement of keys. Pressing a key will register on a row and a column of the grid so software can tell which key has been pressed. This is very different to the way a PS2 keyboard works, but very similar to the way the Commodore 64 worked, and someone has already built a converter for that. I'm hoping I might be able to modify their design and make it work for a QL keyboard.
Of course, this is just an idea at the moment. The first thing I'll need is a dead QL. I'm just not the sort of person who'll cut up a working QL, but one that's already broken would be fine. I'll watch out for that sort of think on Ebay. Next I'll need the bits. I don't have a price for the Nano-ATX board yet, but I reckon it will be in the £100-200 range. Add £90 for memory, £100 for a hard disk, £150 for a DVD writer, £80 for a PSU and £50 for any other bits and pieces.
Maybe tomorrow I'll see sense and forget the whole thing. In any case it's likely to be a long-term project. For the moment, I'll keep it in mind and wait till the right bits come along.
ramtops's link to a PC in a cow project has got me thinking. There's a lot of people who've built PCs in old computer cases using some of the tiny motherboards you can get nowadays. This makes me wonder if it would be possible to fit a fully functional PC inside a Sinclair QL case from 1984.It wouldn't be easy. Many old cases are relatively easy to use because old components were big and chunky. But Sinclair was a genius when it came to reducing everything, and the QL fits everything in the space under a keyboard smaller than an average PC. The actual measurments are 138 x 46 x 472mm, so a standard mini-ITX motherboard at 170x170mm is out of the question. However, VIA have started producing Nano-ITX boards that are only 120x120mm, which should fit the bill (though I haven't been able to determine if height will be a problem). There are also slot loading CD/DVD drives which at 128 x 129 x 13mm should be possible to fit into the space of the old sinclair Microdrives. Fitting a hard drive into the remaining space should be a doddle. Depending on how space works out, I might have to accept an external power supply.
It would be nice to use as many of the original ports as possible. The QL was rather non-standard in its choice of ports, but it does leave a good selection of holes at the back I can use. It used BT phone jacks for joystick and serial ports, which should be just about right for USB, firewire, and maybe even network sockets with a little filing. The old video out was a DIN connector, which will need to be enlarged to take VGA. There are even 3.5mm jack sockets that were originally used for networking but should do nicely for sound. It's concievable a printer port would fit through the external ROM slot, though I doubt the motherboard will have one.
Which leaves only one problem outstanding. The Sinclair keyboard is definitely not PS2 compatible, and plugging in an external keyboard would spoil the whole thing. The QL keyboard is connected to the QL motherboard by two ribbon cables with a grid arrangement of keys. Pressing a key will register on a row and a column of the grid so software can tell which key has been pressed. This is very different to the way a PS2 keyboard works, but very similar to the way the Commodore 64 worked, and someone has already built a converter for that. I'm hoping I might be able to modify their design and make it work for a QL keyboard.
Of course, this is just an idea at the moment. The first thing I'll need is a dead QL. I'm just not the sort of person who'll cut up a working QL, but one that's already broken would be fine. I'll watch out for that sort of think on Ebay. Next I'll need the bits. I don't have a price for the Nano-ATX board yet, but I reckon it will be in the £100-200 range. Add £90 for memory, £100 for a hard disk, £150 for a DVD writer, £80 for a PSU and £50 for any other bits and pieces.
Maybe tomorrow I'll see sense and forget the whole thing. In any case it's likely to be a long-term project. For the moment, I'll keep it in mind and wait till the right bits come along.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 07:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 07:08 am (UTC)... until the penultimate para.
I still have reservations - there are better replacement main boards for QLs, but you might get one that someone's built into a PC case, that's pretty popular.
In which case - reluctantly -
COOL!
no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 07:39 am (UTC)One problem I can forsee is that there's not much height in the QL case. While the Nano-ITX board should fir on the floor of the case, I can see those combined USB/RJ45 connectors that are popular these days making it a bit on the tall side. Making it fit might involve rather more soldering than I'd be keen on.
I think I'll start with the keyboard, because I'm not really bothered if I can't make the original keyboard work. If I can enlist some help from the guy who did the C64 converter, that might not be so hard. If I have that part working, I'll be quite motivated to finish the project.
The really ironic part is that even a fairly modest PC running a QL emulator would knock the socks off a 68030 QL clone.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 07:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 03:07 pm (UTC)are you about mid way through your life?
james
no subject
Date: 2004-07-18 02:39 pm (UTC)