QL
       Query Language

	

	QL

    (Quantum Leap) Sir Clive Sinclair's first
   Motorola 68008-based personal computer, developed from
   around 1981 and released about 1983.  The QL ran Sinclair's
   QDOS operating system which was the first multitasking
   OS on a home computer, though few programmers used this
   feature.  It had a structured, extended BASIC and a suite of
   integrated application programs written by Psion.  It
   featured innovative "microdrives" which were random-access
   tape drives.  It was not a success.

   The microdrives were innovative but probably a mistake.
   Though reliable and quite quick, they sounded like they were
   going to jam and explode, releasing a shower of plastic
   shavings and tape into your face.

   The QL and QDOS only supported two graphics modes - ominously
   named high res and low res.  High res had four (fixed) colours
   at a resolution of 512 by 256 pixels.  Low res had 8 colours
   (black, blue, red, magenta, green, cyan, yellow, white) plus a
   flash mode with 256 by 256 pixels.  The sound was next to
   useless - single channel single oscillator with various
   parameters for fuzz, pitch change.  There was one internal
   font, scalable to 2 heights and 3 widths.

   Peripherals and enhancements included a GUI on a plug-in
   ROM, accelerator cards (Motorola 68020, 4 MB RAM), floppy
   disks and hard disks.

   In 1996 there is still some interest in the QL, spread by the
   Internet of course.  Emulation software, source code, "The
   QL Hackers Journal" and similar are still available, and many
   QLs are on the net.

   (http://imaginet.fr/~godefroy/english).

   (1996-08-01)