Sinclair Loki Superspectrum
Art-S
Thanx///
--
WBR
Art-S
311293609
Steve Anderson
"Art-S" <a...@albi.com.ua> wrote in message
news:abb43c$q4f$1...@bn.utel.com.ua...
> Does anybody have info about subj?
Yep. It never got beyond the rather pleasing concept art that Sinclair User
splashed across the pages. Strange that it had so many Amstrad stylings
before Amstrad bought out Sinclair... anyway, it never happened. Happened
even less than the Commodore 65.
> Thanx///
Croeso
Steve
Julian Hales
"Steve Anderson" <st...@CUREDPORKBLOCKtwindx.com> wrote in message
news:abbb27$bg6$1...@knossos.btinternet.com...
There was a very small # of C65's
> Steve
>
>
Brian Gaff
as it fitted into a trousers pocket....:-)
Brian
--
Brian Gaff - Sorry, can't see pictures, graphics are great, but the blind
can't hear them
bri...@blueyonder.co.uk
"Steve Anderson" <st...@CUREDPORKBLOCKtwindx.com> wrote in message
news:abbb27$bg6$1...@knossos.btinternet.com...
|
Anders Carlsson
> There was a very small # of C65's
I'm not sure the exact number of prototypes is known, but it seems
to be about 100 (or more). Not all are compatible with eachother.
--
Anders Carlsson
Julian Hales
"Anders Carlsson" <anders....@mds.mdh.se> wrote in message
news:k2g661y...@legolas.mdh.se...
Yes thats about the figure i had in my head, although its known to crash and
not be reliable
david
"Julian Hales" <julia...@iggyman.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:cTbC8.40973$%1.41...@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk...
That's the C64 isnt it?
david
>
> Thanx///
Half way between the Flare One (Konix Console) & SAM
Sort of...
Julian Hales
> > news:k2g661y...@legolas.mdh.se...
> > > "Julian Hales" <julia...@iggyman.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
> > >
> > > > There was a very small # of C65's
> > >
> > > I'm not sure the exact number of prototypes is known, but it seems
> > > to be about 100 (or more). Not all are compatible with eachother.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Anders Carlsson
> >
> > Yes thats about the figure i had in my head, although its known to crash
> and
> > not be reliable
>
> That's the C64 isnt it?
>
>
Not sure, i was lucky enough never to have a C64!
Duncan Snowden
> "Steve Anderson" <st...@CUREDPORKBLOCKtwindx.com> wrote in message
> news:abbb27$bg6$1...@knossos.btinternet.com...
>
>> Happened even less than the Commodore 65.
>
> There was a very small # of C65's
Exactly. There was an even smaller number of Lokis. None, to be precise.
--
Duncan Snowden.
h File does not exist, 1040:3
neuro
news:abbb27$bg6$1...@knossos.btinternet.com...
>
Don't forget the Loki cake that appeared in CRASH :)
--
_ __/| ___ ___ __ _________ irc-> irc.astrolink.org #speccy 16384
\`O_o' / _ \/ -_) // / __/ _ \ faq-> http://retro.zensoft.net/faq/css/
=(_ _)=/_//_/\__/\_,_/_/ \___/ woscd-> http://neuro.zensoft.net/woscd/
U - Ack! Phttpt! Thhbbt! @ well.com :: William Anderson
Art-S
david <da...@nada.nada.nada> пишет в
сообщении:abc5im$mdm$1...@helle.btinternet.com...
Big Thanx...
But Where i can find info about it.....?
Tech specs, more....
--
WBR
Art-S
311293609
Tayles
>
> Thanx///
The Loki reared its head a couple of times actually. In mid-1983
plans were made to produce a low cost computer designed to counter the
expected invasion of Japanese systems in the next year or so. A
prototype for built, based around the Z80 processor, that used a
double-mapped screen, a ROM slot, battery powered RAM packs for
storage and a built-in Microdrive. Most excitingly, it was planned to
have a 'windows' style operating system, a version of which was
actually written.
Sounds great doesn't it? Sinclair thought not. The margins would not
be as great as the Speccy and as long as his old warhorse continued to
outsell everything else, he saw no reason to put the LC-3 project, as
it was known, into action.
Between 1983 and 1986, we saw the QL and the Spectrum 128K, but no
sign of the Loki. That is until the project resurfaced in the dying
days of Sinclair (before Amstrad bought it) as a Super Spectrum
Amiga-beating concept. The specifications make great reading: 128K of
memory, 256 colours, hard drive, disk drive. Crazy stuff. It would
have taken years to develop, but just imagine. Legend has it that much
of the technology planned for the Loki ended up in the ill-fated Atari
Jaguar console.
Russ
Steve Anderson
> But Where i can find info about it.....?
> Tech specs, more....
Well, it never existed beyond the concept artwork, so there's really not a
great deal anyone can tell you! There's certainly no tech specs because it
never got beyond vapourware. Tayles mentioned that bits of the Loki project
may have made it into the Atari Jaguar, which I've heard before, so maybe
it'd be worth looking at that!
Steve
david
"Steve Anderson" <steveATt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:abgg0v$i43o6$1...@ID-129414.news.dfncis.de...
And try and find the features on Flare in The Games Machine as well...
Rupert Goodwins
>"Art-S" <a...@albi.com.ua> wrote in message news:<abb43c$q4f$1...@bn.utel.com.ua>...
>> Does anybody have info about subj?
>>
>> Thanx///
>
>The Loki reared its head a couple of times actually. In mid-1983
>plans were made to produce a low cost computer designed to counter the
>expected invasion of Japanese systems in the next year or so. A
>prototype for built, based around the Z80 processor, that used a
>double-mapped screen, a ROM slot, battery powered RAM packs for
>storage and a built-in Microdrive. Most excitingly, it was planned to
>have a 'windows' style operating system, a version of which was
>actually written.
>
>Sounds great doesn't it? Sinclair thought not. The margins would not
>be as great as the Speccy and as long as his old warhorse continued to
>outsell everything else, he saw no reason to put the LC-3 project, as
>it was known, into action.
>
The QL got his attention. LC3 would have been Spectrum compatible and
that wasn't where he wanted Sinclair to be. It wasn't until the fact
that the Speccy was the only source of cash in the place got
thoroughly beaten into him (and even then, it didn't make as much
money as the ZX81 had) that the idea came back again. I wasn't at
Sinclair for the LC3 but was for Loki, and LC3 only ever got mentioned
in passing. I remember seeing a ULA design for it, but it was only
pulled out of a cupboard for nostalgia reasons: I don't think there
was any real link between the two projects, aside from some of the
same people being involved in both. Quite a lot of effort went into
the Spectrum 128, which was seen as a lower risk project.
The LC3 OS was indeed written, in skeletal form. Was multitasking,
windowing and potentially very fast -- a complete context switch in
around a hundred T states, ISTR. I don't remember it being resurrected
for Loki, but some of it may have been unearthed for Pandora.
>Between 1983 and 1986, we saw the QL and the Spectrum 128K, but no
>sign of the Loki. That is until the project resurfaced in the dying
>days of Sinclair (before Amstrad bought it) as a Super Spectrum
>Amiga-beating concept. The specifications make great reading: 128K of
>memory, 256 colours, hard drive, disk drive. Crazy stuff. It would
>have taken years to develop, but just imagine. Legend has it that much
>of the technology planned for the Loki ended up in the ill-fated Atari
>Jaguar console.
Well, John Matheison and Martin Brennan were on Loki (which was named
after the Norse god of thieves, as it shamelessly stole all its good
ideas from other places), and then went onto Flare and, eventually,
the Jaguar. I've no doubt that they used what was in their heads about
Loki!
Lots of Loki got breadboarded before Sinclair's computer bits got
flogged to Amstrad, but there wasn't anything there that could count
as an ongoing, coherent project. I don't think such issues as palette
switching were resolved, for example (Brennan and Matheison were
notoriously opinionated, and declared that palette switching wasn't
needed as 'it was only ever good for demos'. Everyone else
demurred...) but I did see some video capture stuff, the disk drive
hardware and some other miscellaneous graphics breadboards.
Pandora was a lot further advanced, but that's another story.
>
>Russ
Rupert
rupert goodwins
---------------
rupertg at cix dot co dot uk
AndyD
"david" <da...@nada.nada.nada> wrote in message
news:abhh38$e2g$1...@paris.btinternet.com...
-AndyD
Duncan Snowden
> Pandora was a lot further advanced, but that's another story.
Do tell. That was fascinating - I always assumed that Loki was just a
figment of SU's imagination with only the barest of groundings in
reality.
--
Duncan Snowden.
E Out of DATA, 1340:2
Chris Young
Rupert Goodwins-Man! A super-hero with the power to write complete crap
to comp.sys.sinclair, such as this gem:
> Lots of Loki got breadboarded before Sinclair's computer bits got
> flogged to Amstrad
Did the Loki stuff also go to Amstrad?
Chris
--
+-------------------------------------------+
| Unsatisfactory Software - "because it is" |
| http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk |
| Your Sinclair: A Celebration |
+-- http://www.ysac.cjb.net/ --ICQ:28784166-+
david
"Chris Young" <unsatis...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:3CDE4E86.MD-1.4....@bigfoot.com...
> On Sat, 11 May 2002 13:17:56 GMT, Rupert Goodwins ate a Rolo, and turned
into...
> Rupert Goodwins-Man! A super-hero with the power to write complete crap
> to comp.sys.sinclair, such as this gem:
>
> > Lots of Loki got breadboarded before Sinclair's computer bits got
> > flogged to Amstrad
>
> Did the Loki stuff also go to Amstrad?
>
I think you'll find it went to Flare - hence the Flare one, Music Machine,
Ram Print, Konix, Jaguar - the cpu they did for Bell Fruit etc...
Rupert Goodwins
No, Sinclair was always a leaky ship when it came to talking to
journos! Even when everyone kept their traps shut, Clive had a habit
of going to lunch with a journalist, opening a can of worms and
spilling the beans. (I remember a rather fine cartoon in the in-house
newsletter, Wham, by Ben Cheese celebrating one such disclosure to
Jane Bird of the Times). I remember one further little snipped about
Loki -- it was so named by Andrew Cummins, moped-riding,
cider-drinking marketing man. He went on to Arm, where he was until
very recently. There are a couple of references to him and to Loki in
the Sinclair quotes.txt file I posted in c.s.s a couple of years
ago...
Pandora was the last project I worked on. It was the size of a large,
rather deep laptop, and was basically a portable Spectrum 128 (ie,
paged memory, sound) with some 'new' graphics modes taken from the
Timex 2048 and - of course -- a flat-screen CRT. (the QL was also
going to have one of those -- which is why the video timings were
strange -- until a surprisingly late date). Because it wasn't
possible to make colour ones -- there were some experiments, but they
all looked sepia -- and because any ones that were bigger than an inch
or so across tended to implode, the flat CRT was green, tiny and
overdriven. It hid in the base of the lid, and when you opened up the
thing a variety of mirrors and lenses hinged out to make a much bigger
'virtual' screen that looked like a 12" monitor hovering somewhere
beneath your knees. Bizarre doesn't begin to cover it. But it did
work, after a fashion; I did the screen driving software and designed
some fonts (the screen was so weird that if you didn't have fonts
explicitly matched to it, the chances of reading stuff was minimal).,
all tested on an old Zenith green monitor I'd jimmied to match the
aspect ratio of the final screen. Only a couple of prototypes got
made -- I expect Perran Newman, the project manager, has one
somewhere.
Can't remember too much about the video modes, although I think there
was one that had 64 x 24 characters. That was going to be the main
one, because Pandora was seen as a productivity tool rather than a
games box. It also had, IRC, a 6 or 8 MHz CMOS Z80 -- I think it was
the Hitachi variant with some extra instructions -- and everything
else bar the memory in one ULA. And I also STR that it wasn't going to
have microdrives: the flat screen was seen as quite enough nonsense to
be getting on with, thank you very much Clive.
But the circuit never got further than a collection of breadboards,
and the models were there to test the optics and screen details.
People were understandably nervous about things like the EHT supply to
the overdriven tube, and even more nervous about whether the whole
thing would either work or be manufacturable.
And of course, it got canned when Sugar stepped in. Guy Kewney asked
him at the time whether he'd bought the rights to Pandora. "Have you
seen it?" asked Sugar. "Yes" said Guy. "Well then." said Sugar. I did
get asked whether I wanted to go to Cambridge Computer and work on
what was to become the Z88, but I felt at the time that everyone had
been sold down the river and didn't want to work on Clive's farm no
more...
Now, where's me pipe and slippers. And is that a Jaffa cake I see over
there?
R
>
>E Out of DATA, 1340:2
rupert goodwins
Duncan Snowden
> Clive had a habit of going to lunch with a journalist, opening a can
> of worms and spilling the beans.
Worms, Shirley?
> the Sinclair quotes.txt file I posted in c.s.s a couple of years
> ago...
Oh yeah, I remember enjoying that little insight into the collective mind
of Sinclair as well.
> And of course, it got canned when Sugar stepped in. Guy Kewney asked
> him at the time whether he'd bought the rights to Pandora. "Have you
> seen it?" asked Sugar. "Yes" said Guy. "Well then." said Sugar.
LOL! Says it all, really.
See, Spec-chums? I *told* you that if Sinclair had by some miracle managed
to gain a monopoly, the machines we'd be using today would, judged by the
standards of what actually happened, be madder than an entire football
team of hatters, and who can say I'm wrong now, eh? I bet they'd have
been more fun, though.
Anyway, cheers for that, Rupert. What might have been...
--
Duncan Snowden.
I FOR without NEXT, 840:3
Jeff Braine
On Sat, 11 May 2002, Rupert Goodwins wrote:
> Pandora was a lot further advanced, but that's another story.
:D
You can guess what's coming next.. Tell us a story uncle Rupert!
--
Jeff Braine
Unix System Engineer
Griffith University
Rudi Niemeijer
news:abb43c$q4f$1...@bn.utel.com.ua...
> Does anybody have info about subj?
There are some sources on the internet (try 'Loki Spectrum' on Google.com):
http://www.mjwilson.demon.co.uk/crash/31/loki.htm
http://lurch.ucd.ie/~sinclair/Planet_Sinclair/loki.htm
http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/loki/loki.htm
http://zx-museum.org.ru/www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/planet/lokirevi.htm
Etc...
Rudi
Art-S
Rudi Niemeijer <rudi.ni...@home.nl> пишет в
сообщении:KtTD8.232740$oI.15...@zwoll1.home.nl...
Big Thanx 2 all :-)
You really help me
Best Reagards from Ukraine--
WBR
Art-S
311293609