Minerva

A replacement ROM based operating system for the QL

March 7, 2010

Minerva 1.89 is now public domain and can be downloaded for use with QL emulators. It has been tested on qemulator (768k RAM limit now removed) and UQLX.

There are two versions of Minerva:-

Minerva MKII RTC

Battery backed clock and RAM, and Philips I²C Bus for interfacing

• Quick start to preferred mode
• Battery-backed real time clock
• Net number set
• Some enhancements optionally disabled
• ROMs optionally 'unplugged'
• Up to 128 chrs BOOT (can boot off network with no drives)
• Philips I²C bus which drives the on-board clock/ram chip. Other I²C devices available from TF Services which can be attached to the bus are analogue and digital I/O devices. Also manufactured by Philips and others are phone diallers, LCD drivers, teletext chips and a voice synthesiser.

This I²C bus is made available by a 9 pin female D connector attached via cable to the Minerva circuit board.

Minerva MKII also has all the features of Minerva MKI:

Minerva MKI

• Split output baud rates (only when Hermes fitted)
• Multiple superBasic interpreters EXECed directly from ROM (EX PIPEP) running concurrently. Useful for debugging for instance without compiling
• Easily installed - no soldering - remove two ROM chips and plug in the PCB. (Older QLs with EPROMS may need modification - instructions supplied)
• Faster more thourough RAM test (ideal for Trump Card owners). Diagnostics give failed RAM address and chip concerned
• 'Warm' reset from keyboard - clears RAM with no ramtest
• Internal fitting - leaves ROM port free
• Faster TRAP entry - screen updates may be faster etc
• Faster scheduler - multiple programs may run faster
• Faster floating point arithmetic
• Faster string manipulation and concatenation
• Faster BASIC program search (GOTO, PROC call etc)
• De-bugged in line basic code
• Major rewrite to graphics - 10% of lightning on JM/JS
• REAL integers - no more internal conversion to and from floating point
• Second screen via extended MODE command and TRAP level
• COMPOSE obscure characters (easy to find Ü and Ö now)
• SuperBasic TRACE hooks including single stepping
• Extended character set, including Greek and control characters (not with Lightning)
• Upside down SCALEing possible
• ATAN(x,y) gives ATN(y/x) but faster - no error when x=0
• DATE procedure accepts more flexible parameters
• String and interger SELECT
• Fast memory move vectors (over 350k per second!)
• WHEN ERRor and WHEN variable supported and working
• Autoboot on RESET after 15 seconds if no key pressed - defaults to F2 (Can be overridden with MKII RTC)
• F3/F4 boot for dual screen mode and cut ram to 128K
• Line 1010 and 1111 emulator exceptions trapped out
• CTRL C now switches screen if job runnung on second screen
• ESC from IO.EDLIN (AUTO EDIT etc) and enhanced editing calls
• Extra RI functions available through RI.EXE
• superBasic's RESPR (and LRESPR) redirected to common heap if jobs running - ie can be called any time after QL booted.
• VER$ can now return QDOS version and system variable base
• Loadable foreign language keyboard drivers (French, German, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Italian)
• Parameter RAM - change the default fonts and even the VER$
• Interactive superBasic syntax check - leaves cursor on error point

Prices:  UK    Europe   Rest of world 

Files are available for download (7 Mar 2010)

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