He bought a QL in May 1994 to assist with his business and found very early on that it crashed easily, so developed mains filters to cure the problem.
Use and knowledge of the QL expanded so much that the QL took over his business.
Over the years as TF Services ([+44]344 890986) has been involved with the following:
SuperHermes is a newly released project and has far exceeded even Lau and Tony's expectations. It is basically a mouse/IBM keyboard interface and fast 'real' serial port. No way did they expect the serial port, for instance, would input at over 5000cps, and this with no special FIFO chip support, and on a very small circuit board.
He is based in Ascot, Berkshire, UK
He is a freelance programmer and came into the QL business by way of QVIEW. Along with Stuart McKnight and Jonathan Oakley they set about producing an alternative hardware based operating system for the QL.
Laurence loves getting into the heart of a machine and hacked into the 8049 co-processor code. He put the de-bugged code in the equivalent 8749 co-processor and through software only, removed all the bugs of the Sinclair code. Over a thousand users of Hermes with fast modems can testify to his work.
Following on from this, in many night-time phone calls with Tony Firshman, they hit on the idea of putting Hermes code in a modern fast co-processor (PIC 17C42). This allowed an even better Hermes and many extras (FAST 57600 serial port, IBM AT kybd interface, serial mouse port and many other features).
superHermes took about 18 months intensive work, but is at last on general release from TF Services.
He lives in Port Isaac, Cornwall, UK.
Check out his web site: http://www.firshman.co.uk
