Pointer Environment & Toolkit 2

Updated: 22/04/11

Pointer Environment | Download PE | Toolkit 2 | Download TK2

Pointer Environment

The original QL and compatibles (machines using QDOS) as well as some emulators are command-line driven only. In other words, you have to type in commands to run programs etc. It gives absolute control over the machine, but 2 decades later more and more people are using pointer environment in some shape or form. Pointer environment gives an on-screen pointer which is controlled by a mouse or by cursor arrow keys to point to certain items on the screen (hence the name Pointer Environment) to select items from lists or menus. It also saves and restores the contents of screen windows as you switch between programs. The SMSQ/E version of the operating system includes the equivalent of pointer environment.

Pointer environment consists of three basic items:

1. PTR_GEN. This is the pointer interface. It provides the extended console driver and the on-screen pointer, saving and restoring of window contents and so on.
2. WMAN. This is the Window Manager, which provides the colour schemes and standardised appearance of windows and menus.
3. HOT_REXT. The Hotkey System 2. This provides hotkeys, which are keypress combinations (keys pressed with the ALT key) which generate an action such as loading a program independent of whichever program is running at the time.

Pointer Environment files PTR_GEN, WMAN and HOT_REXT can now be made available free of charge. These are the latest versions I have to hand, along with a few older versions which may prove useful for software authors to test programs against, for example. You should try to use combinations of ptr_gen and wman from the same row across and a close version of hot_rext, although hot_rext is not tied as closely to particular versions of ptr_gen and wman. If anyone has versions to fill the gaps I would happily add them to this list. Hot_Rext comes in English and German language versions. For normal use, you should choose the highest version number of PTR_GEN which works on your system, the matching WMAN version from the same row in the table below, and the closest version of HOT_REXT available.

In order to install these on a QL system, you need to add the following lines to your boot program to reserve resident procedure space with the RESPR function, then load them into memory with LBYTES and finally a CALL statement to install them. xxxxx is the file size of PTR_GEN given below for each version, yyyyy is the file size in bytes of the WMAN version used, and zzzzz is the file size in bytes of the HOT_REXT version used.

100 base1=RESPR(xxxxx) : LBYTES FLP1_PTR_GEN,base1 : CALL base1
110 base2=RESPR(yyyyy) : LBYTES FLP1_WMAN,base2 : CALL base2
120 base3=RESPR(zzzzz) : LBYTES FLP1_HOT_REXT,base3 : CALL base3

They must be loaded early in the boot program (usually before any extensions, but after Toolkit 2 or Lightning installation commands if used. If your system has the LRESPR command available (systems with Toolkit 2 will definitely have this extension, as will most disk interface system, but on a few systems Toolkit 2 may not become active until a TK2_EXT command is issued):

100 TK2_EXT
110 LRESPR FLP1_PTR_GEN
120 LRESPR FLP1_WMAN
130 LRESPR FLP1_HOT_REXT

Please note: I have experienced some difficulty with using ptr_gen v2.02 and have resorted to v2.01 which seems to be more reliable on my system. Also, please note: V2.03 is a trial version and requires version JS or higher, preferably Minerva to use its full capabilities. It may not work on version AH or JM QL ROMs for example. If, like me, your QL system has a JM ROM I recommend using PTR_GEN v2.01, WMAN v2.05 and HOT_REXT v2.29.

The Pointer Environment is usually bundled with the Hotkeys System, and hotkeys have been a source of difficulty for new users - these articles set out to provide an easy to follow introduction to Hotkeys and a limited introduction to writing Boot programs for use with pointer environment. Apart from the QPAC2 manual, there is very little by way of documentation for users new to the system, so I have added the following files to this page, with grateful thanks to the authors concerned, and to the publisher of QL Today magazine from whence the Hotkeys articles were reproduced.

P.E.Idiot's Guide (86K) - Norman Dunbar's excellent introduction to the Pointer Environment. Alternatively, click here to read it online (thanks to Tim Swenson for the online version).
Hotkeys Part 1 (7KB) - Part 1 of the QL Today series about the Hotkey System
Hotkeys Part 2 (6KB) - Part 2 of the QL Today series about the Hotkey System
Hotkeys Part 3 (6KB) - Part 3 of the QL Today series about the Hotkey System
Hotkeys keywords (15KB) - Keyword guide for the Hotkey system (3KB)

Toolkit 2

This is the original and best toolkit software for the QL. Just about every QL disk interface released contained some variant of this toolkit, and it was also available as a plug in EPROM for the QL. With the increasing use of emulators, most of which do not include Toolkit 2, free release of the Toolkit 2 has been agreed. Two versions are presented here, a 16K ROM image version and the reconfigurable disk version of Toolkit 2, complete with manuals and a tutorial. The Toolkit 2 ROM image may be installed in one of two ways:

100 base=RESPR(16384):LBYTES FLP1_Tk2_Ext,base:CALL base

If that does not work, it is because ROMs have a header which must be skipped. There is a word value at offset 6 bytes from the base which is an offset from the base of the eprom (an image in this case) to the rom initialisation routine - see page 66 of the QL Technical Guide for details. So we can try this alternative version:

100 base=RESPR(16384):LBYTES FLP1_Tk2_Ext,base:CALL base+PEEK_W(base+6)

If using an emulator such as QLay or QemuLator which have the facility to load 16K eprom image, use that facility. Of course, QPC2 users need not load either pointer environment or Toolkit 2 since the equivalent of them is built into QPC2! Copies of Toolkit 2, manuals and a tutorial may be downloaded via the links below.

tk2ext.zip - This is a Toolkit 2 ROM image v2.12, for use with emulators. (Tony Tebby) (13K) [30/01/05]

tk213_rom.zip - This is a Toolkit 2 ROM image v2.13, for use with emulators (Tony Tebby) (13K) [12/03/09]

tkii220.zip - This is a Toolkit 2 ROM image v2.20, for use with emulators (Tony Tebby) (13K) [22/04/11]

tk2.zip - Plain text manual for Toolkit 2 (40KB) [30/01/05]

rtk206b.zip - Reconfigurable disk version of Toolkit 2 v2.06b (27K) [30/01/05]

recontk2.zip - manual supplement for Reconfigurable Toolkit 2 (2K) [30/01/05]

tk2tut.zip - Toolkit 2 tutorial article as Quill DOC and plain text files (Stephen Bedford) (33K) [30/01/05]

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