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Any Epson QX-16 owners out there??

So I just won an old QCS hard drive on Ebay. I imaged the dis, and it looks to be from a QX-10. This seems like it would be of interest to someone. Is it?
 
Hi; Adding a Titan Board which emulated the MSDOS OS the computer was able to run PC software. The Floppies used for storage needed to be formatted for the OS.
LRamp
 
Hello from one Crazy Old Guy to another... I am in need of a monitor for use with an Epson QX-10, or advice as to which video card may be added which would allow an external monitor to be connected, Do you have any suggestions? Thank you.
 
Hello, I've had 3 Epson QX-10 which were the predecessor to the QX-16 which I believe also used a CRT powered by the computer. In those early days I joined an Epson user group which met monthly to support and guide one another. I too am now in need of a monitor and recall a user purchasing a video card to which a color monitor could be powered. To my knowledge Epson did not make a proprietary video card for that purpose. It was a 3rd party card the name of which I have long forgotten. If you've discovered one kindly let me know. Thank you, LRamp.
 
Hello and another wav from a Crazy Olg Guy... I have the VALDOCS 5 Floppy Disk software package and a bunch of others... I would gladly share however I am without a monitor to view my system and make copies. It's been years since it was last run, but gently stored. It has a Titan Board which emulated the MSDos 16 bit system. Not promising, but somewhere I may have an extra one of those... my hunt is for a CRT monitor, or direction as to which 3rd party video card supports a monitor and go for it. Thank you, LRamp.
 
Hello Retrograde, I am in need of either a CRT monitor for a QX-10, or advice as to which video card would power an external monitor from a 3rd party manufacturer. Would you know of a source for either? Thank you, LRamp
 
QX-10 monitor

QX-10 monitor

LRamp said:
Hello Retrograde, I am in need of either a CRT monitor for a QX-10, or advice as to which video card would power an external monitor from a 3rd party manufacturer. Would you know of a source for either? Thank you, LRamp
Click to expand...

Hi LRamp,

Here is a QX-10 monitor on Ebay for sale.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Green-Mono...079224?hash=item2f5676a5f8:g:xVoAAOSwLYRgMX5i


DeltaDon and I are working offline from the forum to try and get our QX-10 monitors setup so we can use them on our QX-16's by adding an external power supply. The QX-16 monitors are rarer than Unicorns. As far as a 3rd party video card based on the research we've done it isn't available. Epson was supposed to have made one, but when the QX-10/QX-16's didn't take the market by storm it looks like they quietly let the accessory cards die without ever making any commercially available. I have a Comrex hard drive interface card in mine, which was produced by a company that made some 3rd party hardware for the QX-10/QX-16 systems, but alas no hard drive. Also, we both have issues with our keyboards, they used foam and it has deteriorated to the point that a number of keys are not functional so we are also trying to rebuild our keyboards as well.

Also, there is a guy on Ebay that sells QX-10 boot disks, (CP/M) if your in need of that. I bought a couple. We don't have any of the boot disks for MS-DOS at least not yet. No video means making disks is kind of impossible.

Gordon
 
Hi BSdimp,

I might be interested in a hard drive. My QX-16 came with a Comrex interface card in it, so it might be a viable pairing.

Gordon
 
LRamp said:
Hello from one Crazy Old Guy to another... I am in need of a monitor for use with an Epson QX-10, or advice as to which video card may be added which would allow an external monitor to be connected, Do you have any suggestions? Thank you.
Click to expand...

There's a QX-10 monitor for sale on eBay at the moment. I'm new to the QX system myself and so far have not seem a single plug-in card of any kind offered for sale recently. So one needs to use the Epson monitor.
 
L Ramp and others, I have a QX-16, not a QX-10, and am only now getting it up and running. For a long time it sat without an monitor at all. After search and searching for a QX-16 monitor (which differs from the QX-10 CRT) I ended up taking a chance and purchased a QX-10 monitor and as stated on various web sites with any information at all on these rare beasts the monitor did not function with my QX-16. Again after thinking about the issue of different monitors for differ models of these machines I realized that the QX-16 lacked the +12 vdc on the video cable to power up the QX-10 monitor. So I set out to build an external power source to power the monitor. I ended up tapping into the power leads inside the monitor and bringing them out to the back of the monitor with a 2.5mm jack and then using a 1.5 amp AC adapter to power the monitor. this worked and the QX-16 booted for the first time (for me) with video. That's were I am at at present with using my QX-16. I hope to have much more knowledge as soon as I get to play with the system and figure out what software I have for it. I do know that one of my two floppy drives needs TLC since it doesn't want to release a diskette.
 
If anyone has hardware or documentation for adding hard drives, color video adapters and/or cables, memory expansion or any other 3rd party options for the QX-10 & QX-16 I'd like to see that posted here. Schematics would be wonderful! Maybe if there's enough interest we could get a new Epson QX sub forum created?
 
I ran into a snag getting the QX-16 fully running. My boot disk has errors and at least one major problem - the Epson formatting and disk copy program (Copydisk.com) is not working. So I can't format a blank disk or make copies of the boot disk. If there's a kind soul out there with a QX-10 that can make a new boot diskette or even a diskette with just copydisk on it I'd be willing to pay shipping and for the diskette. A full boot disk would be nice in case I discover other programs that fail that I haven't found as of yet. I know the Setup.com program functions since I did get the time and date set correctly.
 
I ordered a new boot disk from eBay and it arrive today. So I'm now able to format blank disks in double or quad density. As a side note I found out that the QX-16 has quad density 5.25" drives and quad formatted they report as 780K disk size. No too bad!

Also, the clock backup battery in mine is dead and I found out that Lowe's (maybe others?) has a replacement online for about $10 including shipping (tax extra).

The next issue is loading a copy of Modem 7 or some other program so I can transfer files via RS-232 to the Epson from a PC.
 
I purchased a semi-complete set of Epson MS-DOS 4.01 disks that's missing diskette #1 which I assume holds the utilities and other necessary stuff to allow formatting new diskettes. #3 is a boot disk and so I'm able to boot into DOS and read the directories of the other 2 diskettes, but little else.

Seems I'm doomed to have boot disk issues at every step of the way in progressing with my QX-16.

My conversion of the QX-10 monitor to use a wall wart works great and with the 2nd eBay seller CP/M boot disk I purchased I've got back up copies of the CP/M diskette and can also run my light blue Epson box copy of dBase II 2.4 and make backups of those diskettes too. Next issue is to find an Epson QX-10/16 overlay copy of Modem7 so I can transfer files to/from a PC. If anyone has it I'd be willing to buy a diskette copy. Perhaps if I can setup a old PC with DOS I can make use of my Walnut Creek CD of CP/M software that seems to hate Windows 10.

Until then I guess I'll be working on my Ampro Little Board project that's also in need of TLC.
 
An old slow brain having to relearn long forgotten lessons leads to surprisingly stupid moments. I've been fighting with the QX-16 using CP/M (applies equally to a QX-10) trying to get MTERM to talk to the outside world. I'm using a Wimodem to wifi connect to the outside world and have no problems getting the wifi to connect to my router and talk to the outside world using my CRT terminal at various baud rates using AT commands to reset the Wimodem. So I know the Wimodem is behaving. But connecting it to the QX-16 and I had all the classic signs of baud rate errors. Go back into the QX's SETUP utility and set the baud rate once again, 300, 1200, 2400, 9600 and configure the Wimodem with my terminal to match and #@$#$## each and every time. So yesterday I started to press random keys on the QX's keyboard while in MTERM and bingo, pressed the "help" key and help pops up. Duh! Turns out MTERM ignores the QX port settings set with SETUP and requires software settings in its own .DAT file to be set to the baud rate. So as of yesterday the QX-16 is talking to the outside world via Wifi. Now time to find a few BBS's that support CP/M and play around relearning dealing with remote BBS sites.
 
I created a QX-10 & 16 user group here on VCF and I hope anyone with interest in these computers will join the group. I hope to add as much information as possible there so searching everywhere isn't necessary to learn what's already known.
 
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