PicForum

Someone just followed up to a 23-year-old post with an off-topic reply in comp.lang.c:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.lang.c/r1exOL5Y1vU/IMnLAjIeiAIJ

"ahhh, I'll just pop it here, it looks vaguely C related."

As a tribute to that, I've just booted up my approx 30 year old Sinclair QL, which over the years was upgraded with a 68020 and 4MB RAM, a 40MB HDD and various other goodies including a mouse driven true multitasking window manager released two years before Windows 3.0 and an ANSI C compiler. I wonder if it would be possible to use it for PIC development? [lol]

Do you think you could get Linux running on it?

That's a touch tricky because there is no MMU or FPU, so standard LINUXes wont run, but uClinux can run without a MMU and I believe there is a 68020 port. I'd have to dig out the 68020 accelerator card's low level documentation to see how it copies system ROM to RAM, patches it and protects it because I suspect I'll need to overwrite that with the kernal image. There is a Linux port on the Q40 (a 68040 based QL successor) so some of the hardware drivers required could probably be back-ported from that.

There is also an IBM PC emulator which I believe I *MIGHT* still have copy of so I suppose I could run an ancient DOS copy of the Microchip Assembler (MPALC).

I've got original IBM DOS 1.0 floppies if you need them.

Aside from your being a very ill man, John, I suspect those floppies are now transparent mylar discs with a pile of oxide in the bottom of the sleeve.

Alright, I'll get them out and inspect them when I get home tonight. I don't think they've seen daylight in at least 15 years.

I assume they are 5¼" floppies.
Do you have anything that can still read them?

I'm afraid the PC that they came with is no longer with us...