OK, so an old guy dropped off a box of "computer stuff" as a donation at our front desk (I work for a charity). In the box there are an assortment of components, some Veroboard and stuff like that. There were also three Sinclair QL computers and a further two in pieces with evidence of modding/tinkering, along with a bunch of QL ROM cartridges and an unknown card hanging out of the expansion port of one of the complete QLs, picture below. insert standard potato pic apology I played with QLs at school and "inherited" a dead one from a family friend, but I never owned a working one. Can anyone Identify the card in the pic and does any body have a old/spare QL PSU I can buy/borrow? I'm guessing it's a IO card for a drive. One of the dismantled QLs has a weird, possibly homebrew, floppy drive with a 2.5" HDD slung underneath. I want to test these machines before I send them to our ebay centre for listing but, if they don't work they get binned unless I send them as spare repairs, which means they get listed for pennies as a job lot. The incredibly flawed logic of our ebay hub doesn't allow for listing as spares unless we specifically state it and there's no option of and/or with them. i.e. you can't send something and ask them to list it as spares if it turns out to be dead when they test it. Don't get me started - I recently sent them a virtual presence robot as spares/repairs because I couldn't source a power supply to test it. I want to maximise what these will earn for the charity, so I often have to jump through a few hoops to achieve that. I'll tag @Gareth Halfacree just in case he can drop some knowledge, but I really need a PSU, if anyone can help. Cheers all.
KNAWLEDGE! That right there is a variant of the QubIDE IDE drive adapter and RAM expansion for the Sinclair QL. This one, by the look of it. Nice bit of kit, that. Now, onto your other query: I don't have a QL power supply, and they're pretty unusual beasts - DC and AC. The good news is that you can get away without the AC bit and power it from an ATX PSU. Though don't blame me if it asplode. If nothing shows up on FleaBay any time soon, and you don't fancy the homebrew approach, there's another option: take a trip to The Centre for Computing History or The National Museum of Computing and ask really nicely if you could use one of their QL PSUs to test 'em. I borrowed a Psion Series 5MX from TNMOC back when I was reviewing that Gemini PDA thing - they're a lovely bunch, and I'm sure they'd be willing to help.
Thanks, Gareth, helpful as always. I think I'll hang on to them for a while and see if I can grab a PSU from fleabay. Failing that, I'll have to send them as a job lot spares/repairs. Bit of a shame, cos I'm curious to see what's on those ROM carts.
OK, update time. I listed the QLs (sans PSU) on our ebay site and they averaged £75 a pop. Not bad. I did forget about that QubIDE card though - and just wondered if it was worth listing on it's own? It costs us a tenner to list items, so I might just list it myself, the next time the ebay £1 FVF is active, and just donate the proceeds back to the charity.
A kit version'll set you back about £40, while a fully-assembled version with 512MB DOM is £70, if that helps.
