Updated:25/01/07
The
QL Documentation CD contains a huge amount of material in the form of
documents, PDFs, text files and diagrams on just about every aspect of the
QL world! Programming tutorials, introductions to pointer environment,
replacement manuals - it's all here! The list below is based on the
README.TXT file on the CD, which lists in detail everything on the CD.
Information based on the 25/01/07 (v2.88) release - more material may have been added since then!). This list is quite extensive, so I'm sure you can imagine just how much reading material there is on this CD! This is information about the QL Documentation CD, where I have set out to gather together all the publicly available documents about the QL into one single reference source. Grateful thanks are due to the various people who helped me gather these together and who gave me permission to use the material concerned, most especially Stuart Honeyball of Miracle Systems Ltd who allowed me to make available in electronic format manuals for his extensive range of QL expansion units, and Tony Firshman who gave me copies of the manuals for his QL hardware products. Thanks are due to Jochen Merz who has allowed me to make available several articles from QL Today originally via my website. Bruce Nicholls and Alfred Kendall located the Hewlett Packard and Epson printer programming information files. Anyone else not mentioned, you are not forgotten but thank you too. Grateful thanks also to Laurence Reeves who has made available the sources for the Minerva ROM version 1.98, which will no doubt be of great interest to those who wish to tinker with the operating system and machine code generally. And special thanks to Simon Goodwin for sending me a number of documents on subjects as diverse as CPU notes, barcode scanners and Thor documents. The idea behind this CD is to provide a "one stop shop" for QL related documentation. With this in mind, if you have any documentation to provide that is not already listed here, please contact us so that we may include it in later editions of this CD. Although most of the documents on this CD are in QL-readable formats (plain text or Quill DOC files for example), some of the more complex documents combining pictures, diagrams and text are to be found in Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format). While some of these may be viewed in Ghostscript for QDOS (ported to the QL by Jonathan Hudson), a copy of the Windows version of the Adobe Reader v5.0 program is included on the CD. In Windows, go to the 'acro' folder on the CD and run the ar500enu.exe self-extracting archive, which will extract the reader and start an installation wizard to guide you through installation. Should you wish to try extracting text from these PDF files, a short text file called copytext.txt is included in the 'acro' folder to avoid you having to wade through the Adobe Acrobat Reader's healp files to find out how it's done! Some documents are in Word (Windows) format, while a few are in text with layout information commands embedded. Finally, please remember that this CD may be freely copied although the material remains the copyright of the respective authors. Do the QL scene a favour and copy this CD for someone who hasn't already got a copy of it! PROGRAMMING INFORMATION FOR 680x0 SYSTEMS 68000 ASSEMBLER INFORMATION A large and comprehensive plain text file describing assembler programming for the 68000 instruction set. 68000 ASSEMBLER HTML FORMAT Norman Dunbar has kindly converted the above into HTML files. Read with most browsers or HTML viewers. 68040 USER MANUAL A substantial Motorola document describing how the 68040 works. This is not the Programmers Reference manual (see below). This is in Adobe PDF file format. 680x0 PROGRAMMERS REFERENCE MANUAL Motorola M68000 family programmer's reference manual, including CPU32 instructions. Supplied as Adobe PDF files. ================================================================================ AMIGA QDOS Some files from Simon Goodwin about the AmigaQDOS emulator, which you should be able to obtain from the web (just do a search, most search engines seem to find it OK), and on the QL Emulators CD. Note that some of these text files may contain embedded formatting commands or control codes. ================================================================================ ASCII CODES QL ASCII code list from Don Taylor. ================================================================================ ASSEMBLER PROGRAMMING SERIES The Programming In Assembler series from QL Today magazine, by Norman Dunbar. Set out in HTML format, read with most browsers or HTML viewers. ================================================================================ AURORA MANUAL The Aurora manual in plain text, Quill DOC, Adobe PDF and Word DOC file formats. The Aurora technical details (registers, screens, detecting Aurora, extended ROM details etc) from Aurora designer Zeljko Nastasic. ================================================================================ BUTTON FRAME Example program listing from Jochen Merz showing how to use and free a button in QPAC2's Button Frame for BASIC. ================================================================================ C TUTORIAL A tutorial for those wishing to learn C (e.g. C68 on the QL) ================================================================================ CFGC68 Jonathan Hudson's attempts to provide a configuration block system for C68. ================================================================================ CLOCKING IN ARTICLES A series of articles from QL Today dealing with anything from the QL clock to Star Trek stardates and printing your own calendars! Includes a discussion of the Zeller's Congruence dates formula. Now updated to include part 4 from QL Today Vol 8 Issue 3 (including the revised calendar listing). ================================================================================ COMPUTER GLOSSARY ARTICLE An article from QL Today magazine, explaining some common computing terms with emphasis on the QL side of things! ================================================================================ CONFIG BLOCKS INFORMATION LEVEL 1 CONFIGURATION BLOCKS The original 'level 1' QJump configuration block data format. LEVEL 2 CONFIGURATION BLOCKS The more recent configuration block information, from Jochen Merz Software. An article from QL Today about level 2 config and a list of registered config IDs. ================================================================================ CPU A set of documents (supplied by Simon Goodwin) about the Motorola 680x0 series processors. ================================================================================ DEV DEVICE INFORMATION The DEV device is a device name substitution system to help with getting older QL software which do not understand long filenames to run from hard disk systems, for example. The DEV device is built into many modern QL systems such as most Miracle Systems disk interfaces, SMSQ/E and also as a file called DEV_REXT which may be added to some systems as resident extensions. This file contains an article about using DEV. ================================================================================ DIRECTORY NAMES A short article by David Denham listing routines for handling directory device names - how to extract the directory part, handle extensions, extract the filename without the directory name. ================================================================================ DIREN KEYBOARD INTERFACE This is a scanned manual for a Diren keyboard interface, along with 5 diagrams from the instruction sheet. The QL graphics are in PIC and SCR formats, while the original PC scanned graphics are in PCX format. ================================================================================ DISCOVER DISC FORMAT REFERENCE Dave Walker's documentation on the disc formats supported by his Discover and Multi-Discover programs. Includes his notes on the QL floppy disk format. ================================================================================ DISK INTERFACES Replacement manuals for older QL disk interfaces. Manuals for the Miracle Systems units may be found in the 'miracle' directory. CST QDisk. There are three versions of the manual, for version 1, 2 and 3 interfaces. In the filenames below, X=1, 2 or 3 as appropriate. Cumana Disk Interface manual Generic disk interface manual. A general purpose manual for most older QL disk interfaces. Obviously, if the manual for your interface is listed here, use that particular manual, otherwise refer to this generic one. Due to the inclusion of pictures, it is best to use the Word DOC or the PDF file version. Falkenberg hard disk interface manual. Sandy Superdisk and SuperQBoard interfaces TRL128 - The Technology Research Ltd Delta 128 disk interface with 128K RAM ================================================================================ DISPLAY CODE An article and assembler source showing how to handle high resolution displays by reading the necessary information from the operating system legally. Provides a set of extensions for SuperBASIC or SBASIC (works in QDOS or SMSQ/E) giving S*BASIC and compiled BASIC programmers access to legal methods of reading screen sizes etc across all QL-type platforms. To install the extensions in SBASIC or SuperBASIC (S*BASIC is an accepted way of meaning both!) simply LRESPR the DISPLAY_cde file. Now supplied as version 2 with additional extensions for GD2 detection, Window Manager versions etc. ================================================================================ DIY BUGS An article by Simon Goodwin looking at the ten most common errors that crop up in amateur and professional toolkit code, and explaining how you can detect and avoid them. ================================================================================ DO Al Boehm's article about using the DO command to process files of S*BASIC commands as though they were batch files. ================================================================================ DOCBOOK Article by Norman Dunbar about how he has been converting his text files into DocBook format, which is an XML format file, with tags defined by the DTD format (DTD=Document Type Definition). Once a document is in DocBook format, various transformation programs are availabel to convert to various other useful formats. Examples of the use of DocBook on this CD include Norman Dunbar's assembler programming articles from QL Today magazine. ================================================================================ EASEL GRAPHICS The format of saved Easel graphics files, generated by printing graphics output to a file, is explained in this short article, along with the additional format permitted by the Xchange version of Easel. ================================================================================ EASYBASE FILE FORMAT The file structure information for the EasyBase database system for the QL. EasyBase is published by Q-Celt Computing in Ireland. ================================================================================ EASYPTR TUTORIAL FROM NORMAN DUNBAR Easyptr is a programming utility from Albin Hessler Software, to assist with the easier production of pointer driven software for the QL. Norman Dunbar didn't find the going so 'Easy' when he first used EasyPtr, so he set about producing this tutorial for the package. EasyPtr is available from Q-Branch and Jochen Merz Software. ================================================================================ EASYPTR 4 ARTICLES First, there was the colour drivers. Next came the new Window Manager (WM2) to make better use of the colour drivers. Then Easyptr was updated to version 4 to actually allow us mere mortals to write programs to best make use of the new facilities programmed into the operating system by people like Marcel Kilgus. Now that Easyptr 4 is available fromQBranch and JMS I thought I'd better write some articles about actually using the new system. These are a short series of articles from QL Today Volume 9 and Volume 10 offering a gentle introduction to writing programs using the new facilities, and a review article about a wonderful little extra utility called QCoCo (a program written byWolfgang Uhlig) which makes designing colour schemes for the System Palette that much easier. Some of the diagrams from the articles (e.g. screen dumps) are in .GIF format. The files in the col_ folder are an introduction to use of the new colours etc. The files in the qcoco_ folder are those for the QCoCo software review. The files in the scale_ folder are those for the article showing how to use scalable menus from Easyptr v4. ================================================================================ ERROR HANDLING A discussion of error trapping from S*BASIC, including valuable information on the largely undocumented WHEN ERROR structure and equivalents in Turbo and QLiberator programs. ================================================================================ EXPANDING YOUR QL Two part article about expanding your QL system. Looks at hardware, software and operating systems available. ================================================================================ EXTRAS Alex Wells and Francois van Emelen between them have produced a list of some 3,100 BASIC extension names found in various QL toolkits. This should serve as a useful reference especially for those writing such toolkits, in order to avoid name clashes. The file comes in various text forms and a .dbs format database file for DBAS users on the QL. ================================================================================ FILE HEADER FORMAT ------------------ Short file showing the format of the 64 byte file headers used in the QL filing system. ================================================================================ FILENAME EXTENSIONS A QL Today article listing filename extensions in common use, so you can tell from the _xyz filename ending what type of file it is. ================================================================================ FOXPRO DBF TO QL DBS FILE CONVERSION Information on file structures of Foxpro files plus a BASIC program to do the conversion, from Francois van Emelem. First published in QL Today. QL DBS files are database files for D. Howells's DBAS database utility, available from Quanta library, Thierry Godefroy's website and most other sources of free QL software. ================================================================================ USING FLOATING POINT UNITS FROM QDOS/SMSQ A suite of files from George Gwilt showing how to access FPUs from QDOS and SMSQ systems. This is version 1.20 of the FPSave software and documentation. ================================================================================ FPU ARTICLES Articles supplied by Simon Goodwin on the subject of programming for FPU (Floating Point Unit) chips. ================================================================================ GD2 GRAPHICS AND GRADUATED FILLS An article from QL Today, an introduction to use of the new colours available to SMSQ/E based systems with "colour drivers" or GD2. Also includes some notes on producing graduated blocks of colour. ================================================================================ GD2 GRAPHICS CONVERSION Articles from QL Today volume 8 issue 3. The first is a listing by Malcolm Lear to assist with conversion of 24 bit BMP graphics files from Windows to QL graphics, while the second deals with converting QL GD2 screens (16-bit and 256 colour 8 bit graphics) to Windows .BMP file format. ================================================================================ GOING ONLINE A nine part series by Bill Cable about using your QL to go online to a Bulletin Board. ================================================================================ GRAPHICS FORMATS A file describing the format of several types of QL graphics files, including screens, area save bitmaps (PIC), Eye-Q, Page Designer and Professional Publisher files. Plus a couple of QL-specific graphics compression formats. An article explaining the differences between QL screens, PIC files and PSA files on the QL. A short file with a description from PROGS of the Line Design page file format. A set of text files describing common non-QL graphics format, included here for any QL programmer wishing to write graphical code to handle non-QL graphics files. Covers BMP, GIF, IFF, JPEG, PCX, PNG, TIFF and some ST formats. ================================================================================ HOTKEYS ARTICLES A series of 3 articles from QL Today about using the Hotkey System from the pointer environment. A nice gentle introduction to this rather difficult subject for newcomers. HKEYS is an article listing all the Hotkey System II commands in SuperBASIC and goes on to describe using the extended Hotkey definitions to drive QPAC2 menus via the option commands etc. A useful reference document. ================================================================================ HTML SPECIFICATION DOCUMENTS Documents from W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium, included here in the hope that one day the QL will have a good HTML browser or viewer. Once that day arrives, we can use HTML to provide manuals and help fiels on disk for example. If copying these files from this CD, please note that the HTML 4 documents directory contains a number of sub-directories. Includes documents about HTML 2.0, HTML3.2, HTML4.0 and XML ================================================================================ HTML TUTORIAL Norman Dunbar's tutorial to help you learn HTML - useful for creating those QL-related websites! ================================================================================ INTERFACES GUIDE Article from IQLR magazine by the late Dennis Briggs listing most of the early QL disk interfaces and other cards, complete with simple diagrams to aid identification. The diagrams are PIC files to go with the QL version of the document, or .PCX files to go with the Windows version. ================================================================================ INTERNET ARTICLES A short series of articles by Phoebus R Dokos explaining how to connect to the internet using a QL emulato supporting TCP/IP connection facilities and programs like QL Lynx, QL FTP and the QL email applications. The second part deasl with internet connections using DOS software running on the Conqueror emulator on QL hardware,a nd also using Jon Dent's soQL system. The Windows folders contain PC versions of the files, as Word DOCs and RTF files. ================================================================================ IPC8049 DISASSEMBLY The disassembled source code for the 8049 second processor in the QL. =============================================================================== JOYSTICKS ON QL How to connect a switched joystick such as an Atari switched joystick to the QL CTL ports. ================================================================================ JMROM DISASSEMBLY A disassembly and notes on the QL's version JM ROM. ================================================================================ JSROM DISASSEMBLY A disassembly of the QL's version JS ROM. ================================================================================ KEITH MITCHELL'S HARDWARE DOCUMENTS A series of ASCII files drawn up by Keith as he has serviced some QL add-ons over the years. All should be viewable on an 80 column screen, as they are basically plain text files. ================================================================================ MACHINE CODE TUTORIAL 68000 machine code tutor. These ASCII files are intended to help experienced machine coders from other processors come across to 68000. ================================================================================ MATHS STACK PROGRAMMING ARTICLE An article by Norman Dunbar about the use of the Maths Stack on the QL. ================================================================================ METADRIVERS Lengthy article from Nasta (Zeljko Nastasic) on meta drivers for the QL. ================================================================================ MINERVA 1.98 Laurence Reeves has kindly made available the sources and ROM image for version 1.98 of the Minerva ROM, a replacement ROM for the QL. There is a huge number of files, mostly assembler source files, so I have not attempted to duplicate this directory outside the qxl.win (a) in case of making mistakes in a complex set of files, and (b) the files are almost all for QL editors and assemblers. FOr those unable to access the qxl.win, the files are all contained in three zipped files in the ZIPS folder. See the README_TXT file in the MINERVA folder for details of what the files are. ================================================================================ MIRACLE SYSTEMS MANUALS A set of replacement manuals for Miracle Systems Ltd QL add-ons. All in plain text format. Scanned with much appreciated assistance from Dave Westbury. GOLD CARD MANUAL QXL CARD MANUAL SUPER GOLD CARD MANUAL TRUMP CARD MANUAL MIRACLE HARD DISK SYSTEM MANUAL MIRACLE DISK ADAPTOR GUIDE - Miracle Systems produced a small 4 drive adaptor card for use with Trump Card and Gold Card. Here is the instruction leaflet for it. CENTRONICS PRINTER INTERFACE - One of the most popular QL add-ons of all time! These were serial to centronics printer adaptor cables, allowing parallel printers ot be plugged into the QL serial ports. ED DISK DRIVES MANUAL SUPER GOLD CARD PC PRINTER CABLE ADAPTOR ================================================================================ MODEMS 9600 BAUD MODEM INFORMATION General information about 9600 baud modems. COMWORDS A communications and modems glossary - many terms explained. ================================================================================ MONITORS Replacement manual for Sinclair Vision-QL and Microvitec Cub QL monitors. =============================================================================== MUSIC An article from QL Today and a short basic program to help with the setting of musical note values for musical use of the BEEP command. Contains BEEP parameter values for given notes, and a short program to display frequencies of given notes in Hertz. =============================================================================== NETWORK An article about the QL network. The standard QL, Aurora and QXL all have a simple to connect two wire network built in, able to connect up to 64 QLs together as a simple local area network. =============================================================================== PIC FILES Short article showing how to handle pointer environment area save files, also known as PIC files. Normally you would use facilities provided by pointer environment to handle such files, but if you really must write your own code to load/save these files this article should at least provide you with sufficient information to get you started. ================================================================================ POINTER ENVIRONMENT If you have never used QL pointer environment before, this is a good introductory article from David Denham. Originally published in QL Today magazine under the title of "It's Not Rude To Point", this package includes the article itself plus a copy of the version of pointer environment files referred to in the article. ================================================================================ POINTER ENVIRONMENT IDIOT'S GUIDE A really good introduction to the Pointer Environment on the QL and compatibles. Starts from first principles and gently helps you to get going. Use the Viewer program supplied to view the pictures via links built into the text file. POINTER ENVIRONMENT IDIOT'S GUIDE (HTML VERSION, CONVERTED BY TIM SWENSON) A version of the above Pointer Environment Idiot's Guide converted to HTML by Tim Swenson. View with your favourite browser! ================================================================================ PRINTER PROGRAMMING INFORMATION EPSON ESC-P2 DOCUMENTATION A substantial set of documents describing the Epson ESC/P2 printer control code set. Presently, only in PDF format - any volunteers to convert these into QL readable format? It may of course be possible to print these using Jonathan Hudson's QDOS Ghostscript port, otherwise you'll have to resort to using Adobe's Acrobat (PDF) Reader. A cut down version (text only) of the ESC/P2 guide is available as Quill or Word DOC files - this is merely a list of control codes and notes on each command. HP PCL3 DOCUMENTATION A file listing the control code sets for the HP Deskjet 600 and compatible printers. Although intended for the Deskjet 600 printer, most of the Deskjet and some LaserJet ranges from Hewlett-Packard will handle the information in this document. ================================================================================ PSION PRINTER_DAT FILE FORMAT ================================================================================ PSION PROGRAMS FILE FORMAT Notes on Abacus file structures, from Christopher Cave Notes from Psion regarding format of Quill and Abacus Transfer files, the format used to move files from these programs between the different versions of these programs on different target machines without the loss of data that might occur if export files were used for example. The ABATRA files refer to Abacus, while QUILTR files refer to Quill. TEXTIDY NOTES Textidy_ref is a set of notes from Dave Walker concerning the format of the Psion applications' files. ================================================================================ PTR KEYS Keys for pointer device, from SMSQ/E sources. Format of device driver definition block - an assembler file. ================================================================================ Q40 AND Q60 MATERIAL The Q40/Q60 mainboard user manual, Q40/Q60 hardware documentation and the Q40/Q60 sbasic part of the SMSQ/E manual. This is only the Q40/Q60 specific part of the SMSQ/E manual, you'll need a legitimate general SMSQ/E manual to complement this. ================================================================================ Q40 CD A short article showing how to read CD-ROMs on a Q40 using the Atapi-CD drivers and the QCDEZE software. ================================================================================ QCAT An article by Simon Goodwin about how he wrote a program to use the Radio Shack CueCat barcode scanner on QDOS-compatible systems. The CuetCat scanner daisy-chains onto an IBM standard PS/2 keyboard port. ================================================================================ QDOS HINTS Selection of hints and manual updates on a variety of QL-related subjects ================================================================================ QDOS INTERNALS A selection of information files from Norman Dunbar's web site, all sorts fo information about QDOS! ================================================================================ QDOS LOW LEVEL INFORMATION A document made up from a variety of smaller documents. Plenty of information about anything from QL error codes to memory map and QDOS Traps lists. ================================================================================ QIMI INTERFACE INFORMATION The QIMI (QL Internal Mouse Interface) has long been the 'standard' QL mouse system and most other systems are based on this in some form or other. The document lists some technical and programming information, while the PIC file contains the QIMI interface circuit diagram. Thanks to Dave Westbury for these files. ================================================================================ QL CSYNC INVERSION An article from Marcel Flipse which shows to make a little circuit board which inverts the Csync pin video signal. This allows the QL to be connected to CGA monitors which expect an active-high signal (QL Csync pin normally gives out an active-low signal). Note that this article is in Adobe PDF file format only. Another article on the same subject from Bob Gilder, on how to use an IBM CGA monitor with a QL. ================================================================================ QL HACKERS JOURNAL Back issues of all published issues of the QL Hackers Journal, an e-zine by Timothy Swenson aimed at programmers and advanced users of the QL. A real treasure trove of useful information. 34 issues at the time of writing, all in the QHJ direectory. ================================================================================ QL MANUAL A version of the QL User Guide scanned as plain text files, with the diagrams made into QL mode 4 PIC files. There is also a PDF document format QL manual, which came from the World Of Spectrum website. ================================================================================ QL SERVICE LIST Robert Klein's QL Service List and QL FAQ files. Both the original .TXT files and versions converted to QL _TXT files are here, since rklein.htm contains links to the original .txt files. These files are a useful reference, but do contain SOME slightly out of date material by now. ================================================================================ QL SERVICE MANUAL The Sinclair QL Service Manual, a definitive guide to the QL hardware and servicing. Supplied in both Windows DOC (with PCX graphics) and PDF formats, along with QL version in Quill DOC and Plain Text with PIC file diagrams. ================================================================================ QL TODAY INDEX A set of text files making up an index for QL Today volumes 1 to 9. These are plain text files, compiled by myself (the earlier editions) and Brian Kemmett. qltoday_index1_txt qltoday_index2_txt qltoday_index3_txt qltoday_index4_txt qltoday_index5_txt qltoday_index6_txt qltoday_index7_txt qltoday_index8_txt qltoday_index9_txt ================================================================================ QL WORLD/QL USER MAGAZINE INDEX A plain text file index to these two best known of early QL magazines, by Chris Adams. ================================================================================ QLAY2 Simon Goodwin wrote a guide to the QLay2 emulator. The original document was in HTML. I have included plain text, Quill DOC and RTF file conversions here. These include where possible the original URLs from the HTML version as text in the converted files. ================================================================================ QMENU PROGRAMMING FROM BASIC ARTICLE An article from QL Today about using the Jochen Merz Menu Extension (Q-Menu) from SuperBASIC or SBASIC. ================================================================================ QPAC2 GUIDE The Q-Branch QPAC2 supplement - a beginners document showing how to start using QPAC2, some hotkey commands and writing your own boot files. In Quill DOC, plain text and Text 87 formats. ================================================================================ QPAC2 GERMAN THINGS LIST A list of the Thing names in the German version of QPAC2. ================================================================================ QPC KEYWORDS GUIDE Martin Head has produced a document similar to the QL Manual's keywords guide, but including the QPC-specific keywords too! ================================================================================ QPLANE The instruction sheet for the QPlane powered backplane for the QL. QPlane was designed by Zeljko Nastasic and sold by QUBBESoft P/D. ================================================================================ QUANTA INDEX An index to Quanta newsletter from issue 1 up to 1991, by Chris Adams. ================================================================================ QUBIDE Some technical notes, manuals, ROM versions and utilities for the Qubide QL IDE interface. Also, the Qubide ROM version 2 upgrade leaflet and notes on use of the Trashcan. ================================================================================ QXL.WIN DOCUMENTATION The QXL.WIN is the 'container' filing system for the QXL card and some QL emulators, which store QL files inside a large file called QXL.WIN on the native drive of the host computer. These documents (originally from the Austrian QL group) describe the format of QXL.WIN files. ================================================================================ RAMDISKS ARTICLE An article about using RAMdisks on QL systems. ================================================================================ RECURSION ARTICLE Reproduced from QL Today, this article deals with that difficult programming subject, recursion. It gives several practical and useful example listings in SuperBASIC which are included both in the article and as separate listings. ================================================================================ REVIEWS A few reviews of some significant software for the QL. CATDOC Like it or not, Micro$oft Word is a pretty de facto PC standard and with the best will in the world we as QLers are likely in time to come across some Word document files. Jonathan Hudson has ported the Victor Wagner Catdoc program from the Unix world to provide us with a way to extract text from Word DOC files. Tim Swenson takes a look at this program and how to get going with it. ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS Tim Swenson takes a look at the tools available to the QL user to create electronic publications. ESTIMATE OF NUMBER OF QLERS A short article estimating the number of QLers out there. INFOCOM/INFORM ADVENTURES Article about the Infocom/Inform adventures and the utilities available to use them on the QL. INTERNET FILE FORMATS ON THE QL An article to explain some of the possibilities of using common internet file formats on the QL (e.g. graphics files) LANGUAGES A list of freeware language interpreters and compilers available for the QL MICRO-EMACS A review of an established editor ported to the QL by Thierry Godefroy. MTOOLS REVIEW A review by TimSwenson of the MTools package. PGP A review of the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) system QASCADE A short review of the Qascade program from Jonathan Hudson. Qascade provides a program launcher button system, a bit like the START menu button. QL JPEG VIEWERS A short review of the three main JPEG graphics file viewers for the QL. QL ON THE INTERNET An article in English and German by E. C. Herrnsdorf. QLNET Short article by Tim Swenson about various means of internet access and facilities from the internet. QLTOOLS A review of a program designed to assist with transferring files between PC format disks and QL format disks. QUILL-RTF A review of a Spanish program to convert Quill DOC files to RTF (Rich Text Format) files. SOLVIT PLUS 3 Review of a word games aid from Just Words VIRUS An article looking at computer viruses and the implications (if any) for QLers WHAT'S ON THE INTERNET FOR QL'ERS? An article about email, usenet, ftp and the World Wide Web. ================================================================================ ROMS ARTICLES A set of articles by Simon Goodwin about features of various QL ROM versions, including documenting known bugs, fixes and workarounds. ================================================================================ SCALE COMMAND A short article from QL Today about the SCALE command and how to calculate what horizontal scale corresponds to the vertical specified in the command for given window sizes. ================================================================================ SCART VIDEO CONNECTION An article from QL Today by Richard Cooke showing how to connect QL video to a Scart input TV. Details for both RGB and composite video. Shows how to attach suitable value resistors in line with the colour signals to ensure correct voltages etc. along with the calculations involved. =============================================================================== SDUMP SCREEN DUMP DEVICE Many QL disk interfaces have a built in screen dump device called SDUMP, and a file called SDUMP_rext is also available to provide these facilities on other QL-type systems. This article shows you how to use SDUMP. There is further information in the Trump Card manual elsewhere on this CD. sdump_SDUMP_txt ================================================================================ SER 8056 PRINTER MANUAL A scanned manual for the Ser8056 serial compact printer, a thermal printer popular in the early days of the QL and which is still found as a second hand printer at QL shows etc, often without manuals. This manual has graphics mode documentation added, kindly supplied by Robert Newson. Note that the manual includes about 17 line diagrams. These are embedded into the Word DOC and PDF files, whereas they are supplied as separate PIC files with the QL DOC and TXT files. I've also supplied them as loose GIF files with the PC files. =============================================================================== SERIAL PORTS CONNECTIONS ARTICLE Serial ports are a very useful means of interconnection between computers, but wiring cables for them can be a tricky experience! This article written with advice from Tony Firshman shows how to connect up the various types of serial ports you are likely to encounter. It may be useful if you wish to try to make up suitable cables for use with the Sernet serial networking software for example. Article reproduced from QL Today magazine. Another article from my website about making cables for file transfer and serial connections between QLs and PCs. Covers making cables for QL connectors and PC serial ports which use 9-pin D and 25-pin D connectors. The diagrams are all in .GIF format. There is also an HTML version of the article on the PC side of the CD. ================================================================================ SERNET Sernet is a serial networking system for the QL, derived from a previous MIDI connected system called Midinet. Using Sernet, QLs may be connected to other computers via the serial ports in the same sort of way as the QL network ports are used to connect two or more QLs together. Note that split input/output serial port drivers (STX and SRX devices) are required by Sernet. These are provided by the SMSQ/E operating system, or by the SimSer device drivers for QDOS from H. P. Recktenwald. SERNET ARTICLE SERNET ON Q40 ARTICLE SERNET MANUAL - The Sernet manual, all 3 pages of it, is included. ================================================================================ SMSQ/E INFORMATION GD2 AND SMSQ/E V2.98 INFORMATION Tony Tebby's documents in M$ Word and HTML formats (large files). Documentation on the Graphics Device 2 driver (GD2 or "colour drivers") and the changes in SMSQ/E and SBASIC from v2.98 to handle the new facilities. Note: the _doc files are for Word and will not load into Quill. SMSQ/E MODULES ARTICLE Articles about adding modules to SMSQ/E and about Language Dependent Modules. SMSQ HISTORY An article about the development of SMSQ and some of the problems the author faced during the development. A really interesting read! SMSQ/E V3 Articles about the newly released version 3 of SMSQ/E. ================================================================================ SORTING ROUTINES Sorting routines in SuperBASIC published in QL Today. A Radix (or binary tree) sort routine from Stephen Poole, also published in QL Today. ================================================================================ SPRITES Articles about the new sprites in GD2 system. Addititonal information may be found in the SMSQ?E 2.98 and 3.00 documentation. ================================================================================ STELLA Extensive notes in HTML format (with .GIF illustrations) on Stella concepts. Stella is the proposed Tony Tebby real-time operating system. ================================================================================ SUPERBASIC SOURCE BOOK Tim Swenson's guide to QLiberator and other S*BASIC programming utilities. ================================================================================ SYSTEM PALETTE - USING THE NEW WMAN COLOURS FROM SBASIC An article fromQL Today Vol. 9 Issue 3 about using the new Window Manager 2 extensions from SBASIC. ================================================================================ SYSTEM VARIABLES LIST A list of QDOS system variables, plus some additional SMSQ ones plus a few undocumented ones. This list also documents the more recent ones which specify hardware details in this machine such as processor type, computer type and display type, which may not appear in earlier system variables documentation, plus a few SMSQ specific system variables. ================================================================================ TF SERVICES MANUALS Tony Firshman has kindly let me have copies of the manuals for his hardware products for inclusion on this CD. A bit of a variety of file formats, including plain text, Quill DOC and Adobe PDF files. Useful as replacement manuals for these products if you've lost a manual or bought second-user hardware without a manual. HERMES The manual for TF Services's replacement chip for the QL's original 8049 IPC chip. I2C INTERFACES The manual for the I2C interfaces to go with Minerva Mk II's I2C bus system. MPLANE Instruction sheet for the MPlane miniature back plane. ROMDISQ Instruction manual for the RomDisq flash memory card for the QL. SUPERHERMES SuperHermes manual. SUPERHERMES LITE SuperHermes Lite manual. US KEYBOARD US keyboard tables files for SuperHermes. ================================================================================ TEXT QL A rather cute little text character diagram of a QL which I downloaded from a website somewhere (can't remember who designed this). Useful for adding a QL illustration to text-only documents for example. Just merge this into the document! ================================================================================ THINGS Few subjects in the QL world have caused as much head-scratching as Things. A Thing is a general purpose resource for QDOS or SMSQ, but things are so general that it is impossible to give them specific names, hence "Thing." The rather general nature of Things makes it just as hard to explain them as to invent a meaningful name, but hopefully after reading these files you'll be a little bit wiser. THINGS ARTICLES A series of articles from QL Today by Jochen Merz about "things." THING INFO PROGRAM THING INFORMATION FILES ================================================================================ THOR MANUAL The technical manual for the CST Thor, scanned and presented as a PDF file. It appears to have been scanned as graphics, so I cannot offer a text version. THOR ARTICLES Simon Goodwin has kindly sent me some of his Thor computer articles for inclusion on this CD. The first document is a report from Simon and Sid Martin about the Thor XVI, originally published in Computer Shopper August 1988. The second article from Simon Goodwin is a report on the pros and cons of the 16 bit Thor system and its Argos operating system up to V6.41.The article also discusses how some software performs on the system ================================================================================ TOOLKIT 2 This CD includes some manuals and articles about Toolkit 2. Now that it has been made freely distributable, I thought it appropriate to include a copy of Toolkit 2 for those whose systems do not include the almost mandatory copy of Toolkit 2. Both the standard TK2 ROM image and the disk-based reconfigurable version are included. Use whichever version is best suited to your requirements - some QL emulators such as QLay and QemuLator can load the ROM image directly. For Toolkit 2 manuals, see below. 1. Disk Based Reconfigurable Toolkit 2 v2.06b 2. Toolkit 2 v2.12 ROM image ================================================================================ TOOLKIT 2 and RECONFIGURABLE TOOLKIT 2 MANUALS A full manual for Toolkit 2, used with kind permission of Tony Tebby. Also includes the supplement for the reconfigurable disk/microdrive based version of Toolkit 2. A very useful file for those with no Toolkit 2 manuals, who may have purchased disk second-hand disk interfaces including Toolkit 2 on board for example. ================================================================================ TOOLKIT 2 TUTORIAL A Toolkit 2 tutorial article originally published in QReview magazine. ================================================================================ TRA Information from QL World and an extract from the SMSQ/E manual explaining use of the TRA keyword for character translation and message tables. ================================================================================ UK SERIAL PORTS H.P.Recktenwald's article about the UK QL serial ports. ================================================================================ WARES An article about the various types of "free" software you may encounter (freeware, shareware, charityware etc) and some information on how you may need to unpack archives depending on how the software is supplied. =============================================================================== WHAT TYPE OF MACHINE? Two packages showing how you can read system information to determine what type of QL system your software is running on. 1. WHICH MACHINE AM I RUNNING ON? ARTICLE (QL TODAY) More recent versions of our favourite operating systems have been ported to run on various processors and platforms. This article from QL Today documents system variables and language extensions which will help software to identify which platform it's running on, e.g. so it can check for certain hardware facilities and take advantage of them. The article has been slightly amended from the one published in QL Today (QLay hardware code details) 2. WHAT HARDWARE In a separate directory, a package by D.D. Mitchell to emulate these functions using standard SuperBASIC or SBASIC, capable of running on all platforms. ================================================================================ WHEN VARIABLE An article about the little used WHEN VARIABLE or WHEN CONDITION structure present in some versions of the QL ROM. ================================================================================ WORD FILE VIEWER There are a number of documents on this CD in Microsoft Word format. Not everyone has a copy of Word, but there is a freeware viewer for these files from Microsoft. This directory contains the Word File Viewer for Windows 95/98/NT. The program is supplied in a folder called WORDVIEW,the self-extracting archive has the filename wd97vwr32.exe and instructions are in a set of files called WordView.txt,.rtf and .doc files. Note: at the risk of stating the obvious, this is a WINDOWS program, and NOT a QL program. There is a program called catdoc for the QL (ported from a Unix program of the same name) which is available from Jonathan Hudson's website, at www.daria.co.uk ================================================================================ ZIP AND UNZIP A short article explaining how to use the most common features of Zip and Unzip from the command line. ================================================================================ ZIPPED COPIES OF ABOVE FILES The zips-> directory contains copies of most of the above files in zipped format, in case you'd like to distribute these via email or websites in compressed format, or if you simply wish to move the files to or from other computer media (e.g. PC floppy disks) to a QL. There is a copy of the ZIPS directory both inside the QXL.WIN system. You will need a copy of UNZIP to decompress these. Programs like Winzip for Windows will do the job, as will the QDOS Unzip from Jonathan Hudson. This is a QDOSport of the official Infozip system, and the latest version may be downloaded via Jonathan's website on www.daria.co.uk A copy of QDOS Unzip and Zip may be found on this CD in their own folders, and archived copies within the 'zips' folder.