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Miracle Systems Ltd. were a manufacturer of
Miracle Systems Ltd. were a manufacturer of personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
peripherals and upgrades, specializing in the Sinclair QL
The Sinclair QL (for ''Quantum Leap'') is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the serious home user and professional and executive users markets from small ...
, in the 1980s and early 1990s.
The company was incorporated in February 1983. Initially, they produced simple peripherals such as an RS-232
In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such a ...
to Centronics
Centronics Data Computer Corporation was an American manufacturer of computer printers, now remembered primarily for the parallel interface that bears its name, the Centronics connector.
History
Foundations
Centronics began as a division ...
parallel printer interface adapter. Later, they designed the ''Expanderam'' series of RAM
Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:
Animals
* A male sheep
* Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish
People
* Ram (given name)
* Ram (surname)
* Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director
* RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch
* ...
expansion cards for the QL, which led to the ''Trump Card'' combined RAM expansion and floppy disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...
interface. This was notable in that it mapped RAM into memory space reserved for external peripheral devices, thus allowing the QL's RAM to be expanded to 768 kB rather than the official limit of 512 kB.
The Trump Card was later superseded by the ''Gold Card'' processor upgrade card. This replaced the QL's 68008 CPU with a 16 MHz 68000
The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Secto ...
and included 2 MB of RAM, a floppy disk interface (supporting DD, HD, and ED density 3.5 in drives) and a non-volatile real-time clock. Gold Card plugged into the QL expansion slot and required no internal modifications to the host QL.
The follow-up ''Super Gold Card'' had a 24 MHz 68020
The Motorola 68020 ("''sixty-eight-oh-twenty''", "''sixty-eight-oh-two-oh''" or "''six-eight-oh-two-oh''") is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. A lower-cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keepin ...
CPU, 4MB of RAM, and added a Centronics parallel printer interface.
In 1993, Miracle launched the ''QXL'' QL emulator card for PCs. This comprised a 20 MHz (later 25 MHz) 68EC040 processor, up to 8 MB of RAM and an FPGA
A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term '' field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware de ...
on an ISA card. The QXL ran the SMSQ Qdos-compatible operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
and used the host PC's disks, screen, keyboard, serial and parallel ports via an MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
"server". Two QLAN-compatible network ports were also provided on the QXL card.
The company was finally wound up in August 2004.
Defunct technological companies of the United Kingdom
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