when somebody sends me an email saying that the Sinclair QL turned 25 years old yesterday, and that I should mention it on my blog, I just went "hmm". Because while I had one and loved it, I have to say that I was so much happier with the PC I ended up replacing it with, and decided that I'll never use an odd-ball machine ever again.
But once you've leapt the Quantum Leap, you're never the same again, as Linus finally admits:
the email from Urs König (aka cowo) did end up festering in my mind and brought back fond memories. So here we are, twenty five years and one day later, and I'm writing a shout-out to the QL anyway. It was odd, and it was flaky to the point of being the only machine I had to do hardware surgery on to make stable and useful, but I guess I was at an impressionable age. And while I don't think there were many QL's that ever made it outside Britain, it was an interesting machine for its time.
I'm sure that made Sir Clive's day.
Although the original QL was infamous for its microdrives etc, some of us keep using a QL derivative system (Aurora, Q40, QPC2, QemuLator, QL2K etc) to this day. And its user group Quanta is still goingwww.quanta.org.uk They are hosting a QL Is 25 get-together at Allesley Hotel nr Coventry, England on 18/19 April 2009 for both current and past users!
ReplyDeleteInteresting - thanks for the info. I hope the get-together goes well.
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