Photo
Type	Personal computer
Released
Discontinued	April 1986
Unitssold	150,000
Processor	Motorola 68008 @ 7.5 MHz
Memory	128 KB (640 KB max.)
Os	Sinclair QDOS

The Sinclair QL (for Quantum Leap), was a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as the successor to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the hobbyist and small business markets, but failed to achieve commercial success.

Description

The QL was originally conceived in 1981 under the code-name ZX83, as a portable computer for business users, with a built-in ultra-thin flat-screen CRT display (similar to the later TV80 pocket TV), printer and modem. As development progressed, and ZX83 became ZX84, it eventually became clear that the portability features were over-ambitious and the specification was reduced to a conventional desktop configuration.

Based on a Motorola 68008 processor clocked at 7.5 MHz, the QL included 128 kB of RAM (officially expandable to 640 kB) and could be connected to a monitor or TV for display. Two built-in Microdrive tape-loop cartridge drives (first seen as a peripheral for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum) provided mass storage, in place of the more expensive floppy disk drives found on similar systems of the era. Interfaces included an expansion slot, ROM cartridge socket, dual RS-232 ports, proprietary QLAN local area network ports, dual joystick ports and an external Microdrive bus. Two video modes were available, 256×256 pixels with 8 RGB colours and per-pixel flashing, or 512×256 pixels with four colours (black, red, green and white). Both screen modes used a 32 kB framebuffer in main memory. The hardware was capable of switching between two different areas of memory for the framebuffer, thus allowing double buffering. However, this would have used 64 KB of the standard machine's 128 kB of RAM and there is no support for this feature in the QL's original firmware. The alternative and much improved operating system Minerva does provide full support for the second framebuffer.

Internally, the QL comprised the CPU, two ULAs, (ZX8301 and ZX8302) and an Intel 8049 microcontroller (known as the IPC, or "Intelligent Peripheral Controller"). The ZX8301 or "Master Chip" implemented the video display generator and also provided DRAM refresh. The ZX8302, or "Peripheral Chip", interfaced to the RS-232 ports (transmit only) Microdrives, QLAN ports, real-time clock and the 8049 (via a synchronous serial link). The 8049 (included at late stage in the QL's design, the ZX8302 originally being intended to perform its functions The tools developed by GST for the QL would later be used on the Atari ST, where GST object format became standard.

Physically, the QL was the same black colour as the preceding ZX81 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum models, but introduced a new angular styling theme and keyboard design which would later be seen in the ZX Spectrum+.

History

The QL was the first mass-market personal computer based on the Motorola 68000-series processor family. Rushed into production, the QL beat the Apple Macintosh by a month, and the Atari ST by a year. While clock speeds were comparable, the 8-bit databus and cycle stealing of the ZX8301 ULA limited the QL's performance. However, at the time of launch, on January 12, 1984, the QL was far from being ready for production, there being no complete working prototype in existence. Although Sinclair started taking orders immediately, promising delivery within 28 days, first customer deliveries only started, slowly, in April. This provoked much criticism of the company and the attention of the Advertising Standards Authority. This curious machine interested a number of high-profile business customers, including certain divisions of the former UK Customs and Excise Department, but its success was generally limited. In the late eighties they were used in bingo halls to allow a country wide networked bingo game.

Clone systems

Hardware

After Amstrad abandoned the QL in 1986, several companies previously involved in the QL peripherals market stepped in to fill the void. These included CST and DanSoft, creators of the Thor line of compatible systems; Miracle Systems, creator of the Gold Card and Super Gold Card processor/memory upgrade cards and the QXL PC-based hardware emulator; and Qubbesoft, with the Aurora, the first replacement QL mainboard, featuring enhanced graphics modes.

In the late 1990s, two partly QL-compatible motherboards named Q40 and Q60 (collectively referred to as Qx0) were designed by Peter Graf and marketed by D&D; Systems. The Q40 and Q60, based on the 68040 and 68060 CPUs respectively, were much more powerful than the original QL and have the ability among other things (such as multimedia, high resolution graphics, Ethernet networking etc.) to run the Linux operating system.

Hardware add-ons are still being produced for the original QL mainly by TF Services, who supply various hardware and software upgrades.

Software

A few patched versions of QDOS were produced, most notably Minerva which gradually evolved into a completely rewritten operating system, offering improved speed, with multitasking SuperBASIC interpreters. Tony Tebby went on to produce another updated operating system, SMSQ/E, which has continued to be developed for the Sinclair QL and emulators, offering many more features.

Trivia

Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, owned a Sinclair QL in his youth and used it to learn programming.

The QL's Intel 8049 Intelligent Peripheral Controller actually ran at a higher clock speed than the 68008 CPU (11 versus 7.5 MHz).

When connected to a normally-adjusted TV or monitor, the QL's video output would overscan horizontally. This was reputed to have been due to the timing constants in the ZX8301 chip being optimised for the flat-screen CRT display originally intended for the QL.

QLs built by Samsung for export markets had DE-9 sockets for the RS-232 and joystick ports, instead of the unusual and UK-specific BT630W (similar to BS 6312) sockets found on UK-built QLs.

External QL Microdrives appeared on QL accessory pricelists but were never produced. However, ZX Microdrives could be connected to the external Microdrive interface and performed flawlessly on a QL (actually offering higher reliability than the built-in ones).

See also

Sinclair QL Software

External links

Dilwyn Jones's QL pages - General QL information and software downloads

Thierry Godefroy's Sinclair QL and QDOS compatible systems site

The QL chronology (1981 until today)

Binary Dinosaurs: QL peripherals gallery

Sinclair QL Service Manual, issue 3, October 1985

QL-Users Mailing List

QL User Forum

QUANTA - the QL Users and Tinkerers Association

Emulators and support

RWAP Software - Software, second hand items and keyboard membranes

RWAP Adventures - Adventure programs for the Sinclair QL and ZX Spectrum

Jochen Merz Software

TF Services (Tony Firshman) Spares, repairs and addons for the QL

Davide Santachiara web page

Q-emuLator Sinclair QL emulator for Windows and Mac OS

QPC emulator for DOS and Windows (uses QDOS successor SMSQ/E)

uQLx emulator for Unix

QL2K - Sinclair QL Emulator for Windows 2000/XP

References

Category:Personal computers QL

Name	Linus Torvalds
Caption	Torvalds in 2002
Birth name	Linus Benedict Torvalds
Birth date	December 28, 1969
Birth place	Helsinki, Finland
Residence	Portland, Oregon
Nationality	Finnish American
Relatives	Ole Torvalds (grandfather)
Website	torvalds-family.blogspot.comcs.helsinki.fi/u/torvalds (outdated)

Linus Benedict Torvalds (; born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator. He also created the revision control system git.

Biography

Early years

Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland. He is the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds, and the grandson of poet Ole Torvalds. Both of his parents were campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority (5.5%) of Finland's population. Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the American Nobel Prize-winning chemist, although in the book Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Torvalds is quoted as saying, "I think I was named equally for Linus the Peanuts cartoon character", noting that this makes him half "Nobel-prize-winning chemist" and half "blanket-carrying cartoon character".

Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki from 1988 to 1996, graduating with a master's degree in computer science from NODES research group. His academic career was interrupted after his first year of study when he joined the Finnish Army, selecting the 11-month officer training program to fulfill the mandatory military service of Finland. In the army he holds the rank of second lieutenant, with the role of a ballistic calculation officer. In 1990, he resumed his university studies, and was exposed to UNIX for the first time, in the form of a DEC MicroVAX running ULTRIX. His M.Sc. thesis was titled Linux: A Portable Operating System.

His interest in computers began with a Commodore VIC-20. After the VIC-20 he purchased a Sinclair QL, which he modified extensively, especially its operating system. He programmed an assembly language and a text editor for the QL, as well as a few games. He is known to have written a Pac-Man clone named Cool Man. On January 5, 1991 he purchased an Intel 80386-based IBM PC and spent a month playing the game Prince of Persia before receiving his MINIX copy, which in turn enabled him to begin work on Linux.

Later years

After a visit to Transmeta in late 1996, In 1999, both companies went public and Torvalds' net worth shot up to roughly $20 million.

His personal mascot is a penguin nicknamed Tux, which has been widely adopted by the Linux community as the mascot of the Linux kernel.

Although Torvalds believes "open source is the only right way to do software", he also has said that he uses the "best tool for the job", even if that includes proprietary software. He was criticized for his use and alleged advocacy of the proprietary BitKeeper software for version control in the Linux kernel. However, Torvalds subsequently wrote a free-software replacement for BitKeeper called Git. Torvalds has commented on official GNOME developmental mailing lists that, in terms of desktop environments, he encourages users to switch to KDE. However, Torvalds thought KDE 4.0 was a "disaster" because of its lack of maturity, so he switched to GNOME.

The Linus/Linux connection

Initially Torvalds wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it is a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the server where the kernel was first hosted for downloading, named Torvalds' directory linux.

Authority and trademark

About 2% of the Linux kernel as of 2006 was written by Torvalds himself.

Torvalds owns the "Linux" trademark, and monitors use of it chiefly through the Linux Mark Institute.

Personal life

Linus Torvalds is married to Tove Torvalds (née Monni) — a six-time Finnish national karate champion — whom he first met in the autumn of 1993. Torvalds was running introductory computer laboratory exercises for students and instructed the course attendants to send him an e-mail as a test, to which Tove responded with an e-mail asking for a date. two of whom were born in the United States.

Torvalds has registered to vote in the United States; he is unaffiliated with any U.S. political party, saying he has "way too much personal pride to want to be associated with any of them, quite frankly."

In August 2005, Torvalds received the Vollum Award from Reed College.

;Industry In 1998 Torvalds received an EFF Pioneer Award. In 2000 he was awarded the Lovelace Medal from the British Computer Society. In 2001, he shared the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Well-Being with Richard Stallman and Ken Sakamura. In 2008, he was inducted into the Hall of Fellows of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. He was awarded the C&C; Prize by the NEC Corporation in 2010 for "contributions to the advancement of the information technology industry, education, research, and the improvement of our lives".

;Media Time magazine has recognized Torvalds multiple times: In 2000, he was 17th in their Poll. In 2004, he was named one of the most influential people in the world In 2006, the magazine's Europe edition named him one of the revolutionary heroes of the past 60 years.

InfoWorld presented him with the 2000 Award for Industry Achievement. In 2005 Torvalds appeared as one of "the best managers" in a survey by BusinessWeek. In 2006, Business 2.0 magazine named him one of "10 people who don't matter" because the growth of Linux has shrunk Torvalds' individual impact.

In summer 2004, viewers of YLE (the Finnish Broadcasting Company) placed Torvalds 16th in the network's 100 Greatest Finns. In 2010, as part of a series called The Britannica Guide to the World's Most Influential People, Torvalds was listed among The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time (ISBN 9781615300037).

;Other

In 1996, an asteroid (9793 Torvalds) was named after him.

The 1999 novel Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson features several characters who use "Finux", a Unix-like operating system developed in Finland. In the 2001 film Swordfish, the uber-hacker Axl Torvalds was a reference to Linus because of his contributions to Linux which is the primary operating system of hackers.

See also

Linus' Law

Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate

Notes

References

External links

Linus' blog

Linus Torvalds and His Five Entrepreneurial Lessons

Ten years of NODES

Category:Computer pioneers Category:Linux kernel hackers Category:Finnish bloggers Category:Finnish computer programmers Category:Free software programmers Category:People in information technology Category:Swedish-speaking Finns Category:University of Helsinki alumni Category:Finnish atheists Category:1969 births Category:Living people Category:American people of Finnish descent Category:People from Helsinki Category:People from Portland, Oregon