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QL versus JAGUAR |
QLvsJAGUAR Video Channel on YouTube |
Blog (QLvsJAGUAR Community Tab)
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Urs König is Swiss (German speaking), was born in 1968 and grew up with ATARI video games and Sinclair home computers in the 80s. Urs was a teenager when the Sinclair QL (Motorola MC68008 8-/32-bit CPU, Qdos 32-bit preemptive multitasking OS) was in development and launched to the market. After using QLs at many monthly workshops of the Sinclair User Club Switzerland (SUCS), Urs finally bought his first personal QL, at age of 17, when it was on sales after Christmas 1985. Urs established the COWO Electronic business in 1984 and ran it - supporting all QL compatible systems - until 1992, with some extend to 1995. COWO Electronic partnered with Tony Tebby's company QJUMP, licensing their QL Extended Pointer Environment. Other major partnerships were with ABC Elektronik, CST, Dansoft, JMS and Thornado. COWO Electronic imported and sold quite a few QL and compatible (CST Thor, ATARI ST) systems, peripherals and software and published several software titles. Urs developed several QL software packages of which QTop - the definitive user front end - was the most famous. |
| At the top peak of COWO Electronic in 1991, Urs was using an armada of QL compatible computers to develop, test and support the QTop software suite and other software running under Qdos. Commodore AMIGA 1000 with external 3.5" FDD, Sinclair QL Printer (made by Seikosha), Star LC24/10 Printer, CST Thor XVI, ATARI MEGA ST1 with external 5.25" FDD, ATARI MEGAFILE 30, CST Thor 8, CST Thor 21, Sinclair QL with Goldcard and HD FDD. At that time probably the most complete line up of QL compatible computers worldwide! |
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After his QL development, publishing and trading activities faded out in 1992 and came to an ultimate halt in 1995 Urs became a silent follower of the scene with interests in the QL shifted to two major topics 1) people and 2) preservation.
In spring 1995 Urs bought an ATARI JAGUAR 64-bit Interactve Multimedia System.
This started his QLvsJAGUAR activities.
Urs also became a collector, researcher and writer of QL related articles.
He owns one of the most complete and exclusive QL and JAGUAR collections.
Over the years Urs established close connections to many former Sinclair employees.
Having met or communicated with almost the entire QL development team over the years, Urs knows the QL story in and out.
In 2009 Urs ran the "QL and Mac are 25 "international show in the Verkehrshaus Lucerne (the Swiss Transport Museum).
Urs is running several ATARI (JAGUAR) and Sinclair (QL) related (web-)activities including the
Sinclair Alumni group on LinkedIn, the
Sinclair QL Preservation Project (SQPP) including this website, the huge
Sinclair QL Picture Gallery (SQPG) on OneDrive and the
QLvsJAGUAR Video channel on YouTube to name just a few.
2014 was the year of the 30th anniversary of the QL. Visit the "QL is 30" website and get a glimpse of the party. Ongoing QL projects include QL/E - THE VIRTUAL QL ENVIRONMENT! (Updated 2023-12-29, version 3.23) and
THE DISTRIBUTION (Updated 2021-02-21, version 3.06, RELOADED edition! of QL is 30 2014).
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| Being a Sinclair addict, Urs collects and preserves Sinclair artefacts and also travels to Sinclair events around the globe where he meets other Sinclair community members and holds presentations. Whenever travelling for business or leisure, Urs seeks to meet good old friends from the good old QL times whenever possible. |
| The Grand-Tour of Sinclair QL. A more in-depth talk & discussion about the Sinclair QL. This was a web-only session during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
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After many years in the IT industry, having served as Head of Development/CTO in companies which ended up in SoftwareOne and at 4POS Ltd, a major brand of retail solutions, Urs nowadays owns and runs an independent IT consulting company called COWO Enterprises LLC. While at 4POS, Urs lead several projects, including NPI of new computer systems codenamed ZX21 and ZX23. Get personal Over the years I have learnt that the QL changed my life in many aspects. Summarized I can say that it changed it in very positive way. I would say that without the QL, its technology and the people behind it I would not have made the career the same way as I finally did. |
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QL forever!
Urs König (Mister COWO, Internet alias QLvsJAGUAR)
(replace -at- with @)
Read the blog of Urs König (YouTube Community Tab, started 2020-04-09)
Read the QLvsJAGUAR weblog of Urs König (Google+, started 2013-11-09, killed by Google in April 2019)
Read the 1st weblog of Urs König (Angelfire, 2006-08-20 to 2010-06-29)
Site produced (p) and copyright (c): 2013-2024, Urs König
Page created: January 11th 2014 | Published: January 12th 2014 | Last updated: January 19th 2024
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