My QL still works - it was one of the ones from E. Arthur Brown - the batch that the I.C.s were in sockets and "jiggled" loose in the post - E.A.B. suggested reseating the chips which worked. I guess I was lucky getting a good one but I immediately got a floppy controller for it.
I loved my QL, having upgraded from a ZX Spectrum. What you must not forget is that the "compromises" were all price driven, otherwise you would have been simply developing a "me too" £1000+ machine, this was 1984, memory, storage and IO was expensive. It was available before the Amstrad PCW, the nearest and far lesser, equivalent. The Microdrives were never as bad as people made out, they were relatively quick; at loading 128k. The dual Microdrives allowed you to have an application drive and a data drive which was a revelation to me at the time. The multitasking, although primitive, was excellent and a first for me, running applications in separate windows was incredible. I did code a server application that allowed the QL to serve out a dynamic menu and ZX Spectrum games over the LAN / IF1 connection, although it was not compatible with ZX Spectrum software, it could serve ZX Spectrum files, data and programmes. I don't know if it was just the way things were back then and we have all become Apple'ized, but Nigel's presentation style is very lack lustre and lacks positive outward messaging. We are now accustom to every message being positive, but perhaps the messaging was not positive enough.... I could have done better. ;-) The Microdrive cartridge part, exactly 01:00:00 in the video, was very cringy.. like much of the Q&A! I got rid of my QL when I went 16 bit with my Amiga A500 then A1500, which I regretted, it was at the bottom of the value bathtub curve at the time... I purchased a boxed unit last year (2021), happy once more!
The delivery of the presentation was definitely ‘of its time’ (1984). There was no ‘wow and pizazz’ that we are familiar with these days and, of course, the technology available for such presentations was primitive by today’s standards; mostly still slides. Even a multinational corporation’s high-tech audio-visual presentation would have been in the form of automatic slides with a stilted voiceover (with perhaps a well-known news presenter being employed for the job).
If not for the overly aggressive "corner cutting", in both development and the design of the internals (lack of parallel port, both RS-232s stuck at the same speed, 68008 CPU instead of a 60000, buggy tape, etc), it could have been something great. Too compromised for serious business. Death of 1000 cuts.
Oh, the QL. I think people just thought it was an upgraded Spectrum, which was mainly used for games and bedroom coding. It didn't help that the Spectrum + used the same design principles and was cheaper. Plus it could also do spreadsheets, databases and word processing...
@@RasVoja I think they just made the mistake early on if looking at the full 16 bit bus as too expensive to implement and that was a fundamental mistake. It wasn't about innovation but a basic design choice that was just wrong for the more professional market. And Sinclair himself got too psychologically attached to their own technologies like the flat CRT and the microdrive.
"Sinclair has been rather famous for flat keyboards and one keyboard that was described as feeling exactly as dead human flesh." "I didn't know whether that was true but I tried and it was."
Mk 14 poor keyboard. ZX81 poor keyboard. Wrist watch calculator poor keyboard. Spectrum very average keyboard. Ql poor uncomfortable keyboard. Conclusion an electronics company that cannotake a switch.
The QL could have been great if it had just changed two things - a 68000 instead of the 68008 and a 3.5" floppy drive. Believe it or not, businessmen can be quite snobby, and often prefer more expensive equipment as a mark of status and quality. For a couple of extra hundred It'd still have come in under the competition, but been a far better and more attractive machine.
My QL still works - it was one of the ones from E. Arthur Brown - the batch that the I.C.s were in sockets and "jiggled" loose in the post - E.A.B. suggested reseating the chips which worked. I guess I was lucky getting a good one but I immediately got a floppy controller for it.
I loved my QL, having upgraded from a ZX Spectrum. What you must not forget is that the "compromises" were all price driven, otherwise you would have been simply developing a "me too" £1000+ machine, this was 1984, memory, storage and IO was expensive. It was available before the Amstrad PCW, the nearest and far lesser, equivalent. The Microdrives were never as bad as people made out, they were relatively quick; at loading 128k. The dual Microdrives allowed you to have an application drive and a data drive which was a revelation to me at the time.
The multitasking, although primitive, was excellent and a first for me, running applications in separate windows was incredible.
I did code a server application that allowed the QL to serve out a dynamic menu and ZX Spectrum games over the LAN / IF1 connection, although it was not compatible with ZX Spectrum software, it could serve ZX Spectrum files, data and programmes.
I don't know if it was just the way things were back then and we have all become Apple'ized, but Nigel's presentation style is very lack lustre and lacks positive outward messaging. We are now accustom to every message being positive, but perhaps the messaging was not positive enough.... I could have done better. ;-) The Microdrive cartridge part, exactly 01:00:00 in the video, was very cringy.. like much of the Q&A!
I got rid of my QL when I went 16 bit with my Amiga A500 then A1500, which I regretted, it was at the bottom of the value bathtub curve at the time... I purchased a boxed unit last year (2021), happy once more!
The delivery of the presentation was definitely ‘of its time’ (1984). There was no ‘wow and pizazz’ that we are familiar with these days and, of course, the technology available for such presentations was primitive by today’s standards; mostly still slides. Even a multinational corporation’s high-tech audio-visual presentation would have been in the form of automatic slides with a stilted voiceover (with perhaps a well-known news presenter being employed for the job).
i'm glad i just bought one last week
Thanks !
If not for the overly aggressive "corner cutting", in both development and the design of the internals (lack of parallel port, both RS-232s stuck at the same speed, 68008 CPU instead of a 60000, buggy tape, etc), it could have been something great. Too compromised for serious business. Death of 1000 cuts.
Oh, the QL. I think people just thought it was an upgraded Spectrum, which was mainly used for games and bedroom coding. It didn't help that the Spectrum + used the same design principles and was cheaper. Plus it could also do spreadsheets, databases and word processing...
They could take m68k that route, but where too uninovative. Abeit, it's last micro to have basic and best one and first one to be bundled with office.
@@RasVoja I think they just made the mistake early on if looking at the full 16 bit bus as too expensive to implement and that was a fundamental mistake. It wasn't about innovation but a basic design choice that was just wrong for the more professional market. And Sinclair himself got too psychologically attached to their own technologies like the flat CRT and the microdrive.
"Sinclair has been rather famous for flat keyboards and one keyboard that was described as feeling exactly as dead human flesh."
"I didn't know whether that was true but I tried and it was."
More launch presentations should be fun like this. He had a great sense of humor.
Mk 14 poor keyboard. ZX81 poor keyboard. Wrist watch calculator poor keyboard. Spectrum very average keyboard. Ql poor uncomfortable keyboard. Conclusion an electronics company that cannotake a switch.
1:06:22 is that not the guy from the channel ExplainingComputers in the middle there?
It looks like Chris. Not sure though I know he said his first computer was a zx81
Hardly had ibm quaking in their boots
The presentation is filled with the word “erm....”
These were computer people, not professional public speakers. What did you expect?
100k woooow, an icon in windows10 can be double this lol
The QL could have been great if it had just changed two things - a 68000 instead of the 68008 and a 3.5" floppy drive. Believe it or not, businessmen can be quite snobby, and often prefer more expensive equipment as a mark of status and quality. For a couple of extra hundred It'd still have come in under the competition, but been a far better and more attractive machine.
Could've been the Sinclair Amiga