Your idea on the last page of Novembers issue of the QHJ was great (“Why not make a QL-Clone…”).
My idea is:
CPU is a 68XXX mounted on a single PC-IBM board, so that you can use the PCs hardware (better than QL equivalent) for I/O. I think it may be a static RAM mapped on lowest QL memory, then load QDOS, disabling RAM write pin, emulate an EPROM, and reset 68K.
Keyboard, video and other I/O may be shared with PC via a lot of dualport RAM and I/O ports (and IRQ). Other side features would be a 68K QL bus to connect to QL dependent devices. Memory up to 16 Meg.
PC IBM Features (PC is used as a slave): QL screen emulator (via VGA), keyboard, mouse, joystick, disks and hard disks would format to QL format (and used as FLP and FSK), networking, scanner and other features.
It is also possible to use this board as a Mac emulator.
Editor’s Response – This idea has possibilities. It is easier than designing a new QL from scratch. Cost would be just for the board and software, if the user already had a PC compatible system. I’d be a little worried that too many kludges may have to be done to get it to work. Designing a new QL from scratch will take longer and cost more, but it would be a cleaner solution. This is just my opinion. Plus sometimes the ideal solution is not feasible.