GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS by Dilwyn Jones (Pointer Environment Terms added by Tim Swenson, taken from Glossary in Norman Dunbar's "Idiot's Guide to the Pointer Environment.") From time to time, those of us who write for QL Today have to use abbreviations. If we explained every single one in every single article, this would make the articles very long indeed. We know that there are plenty of less experienced or less knowledgeable users out there, so here is a reference guide to those commonly used abbreviations and terms we run into in these pages from time to time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/D or A to D - Analogue to digital conversion. The opposite is D/A or D to A, Digital to analogue conversion. AH, JM, JS, MG - abbreviated names given to the various versions of the QL rom issued by Sinclair. The letters actually refer to the version of SuperBASIC built in. For Minerva, the equivalent is 'JSL' while SMSQ's SBASIC uses 'HBA' AI files - Adobe Illustrator files, as used by Line Design. This abbreviation can also stand for Artificial Intelligence. ALTKEY - A facility provided by Toolkit 2 (see below) to attach a string of characters to a key. So when you hold down ALT and tap the specified key, that key gives the text for you, to save some typing. For example, if you define ALTKEY 'p','print' and later use ALT p, it types in the word print for you. ANSI - American National Standards Intitute. API - Applications Programming Interface. A set of routines or utilities provided so that programmers can write their own applications to use that code. APPLICATION WINDOW - (PE Term) A menu that is positioned within an application window. This menu may be panned and scrolled if it is too big to be shown all at once in the application window. ARC - A file compression utility. ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A system whereby standard numbers are used to represent text characters. For example, A is 65. ASIC - Application Specific Integrated Circuit. AVAILABLE - (PE Term) This means that a loose item, or application menu item may be chosen. The chosen item may then be operated upon by some other part of the program. BASIC - Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Gulp! That mouthful basically (pun not intended) describes the main language understood by the QL. The QL version of BASIC is called SuperBASIC, or if you are using SMSQ, it's called SBASIC. BBS - Bulletin Board System. A computer you can dial up with a modem on your computer. Many have programs you can download, masses of information, or even message systems where you can leave messages on the system for someone else who also connects regularly to the system. BIT - a single digit of a computer memory. 8 bits make up a byte. 4 bits are sometimes referred to as a 'nybble' of memory. BIT is an acronym for Binary digIT. BLOB - (PE Term) Defines the shape, but not the colour, of something to be drawn on the screen. Considered to be half of a sprite. BOOT - A special program or piece of code which defines how a program or computer starts up. To BOOT UP is essentially the same as saying To START UP, except with BOOT there is usually a special significance in that it is usually the name of a special program which starts automatically as the computer starts. On the QL, this is usually a SuperBASIC program. BPS - Bits Per Second, a measure of communication speed on a serial interface, for example when using modems. BSI - British Standards Institution. BTW - By The Way, an abbreviation used by bulletin board and email enthusiasts, one of a number of commonly used abbreviations for such phrases. BUTTON FRAME - (PE Term) Part of QPAC2. It allows individual programs to be 'parked' as small buttons when put to sleep. This keeps them all in one place either along the top of the screen or down the side, and makes it easy to find them again later. The button frame is implemented as a THING. BYTE - a unit of computer memory. Think of it as one of a large number of slots in which the QL can store small numbers. If you know about binary numbers, a byte can store 8 bit numbers, from 0 to binary 11111111, or decimal 0 to 255. Programs are made up of sequences or patterns of these numbers, and larger numbers are made up of a few of these smaller numbers strung together. CAD - Computer Aided Design. CD-ROM - Compact Disk Read Only Memory. CON - Console window. A type of screen window on the QL which you can print information to, and get keyboard information from. If you have opened a CON type window, you can not only use PRINT to write information to the screen, you can also use INPUT to allow the user to type in information in that part of the screen. When the QL is started up, SuperBASIC starts with three CON channels open on the display, which you know as #0, #1 and #2. CPU - Central Processing Unit, the microprocessor at the heart of a computer. CRC - Cyclic Redundancy Test, used in error checking. CTRL-C. This is a special keypress on the QL keyboard, intended to let you switch between programs which are in memory at the same time. Hold down the CTRL key, and tap the 'c' key. This process of switching between programs is called Task Switching. CTS - Clear To Send, an RS232C signal pin. DB - Data Base, also the term used for the USA equivalent of Archive. DBF - Database file. DD - Double Density, normally refers to a type of floppy disk or drive. DIN - Deutsche Industrie-Norm. German equivalent of BSI and ANSI. DS - Double Sided, normally refers to a type of floppy disk or drive. DTE - Data Terminal Equipment. RS232C communications term. DLL - Dynamic Link Library, an interface allowing a programmer to use code from within his/her own application. DO - (PE Term) Pressing the ENTER key or the RIGHT mouse button. Normally causes some action to be carried out. DOS - Disk Operating System. DPI - dots per inch, used to describe print density on a printer, for example. DRAM - Dynamic Random Access Memory. The information stored in DRAM is lost if the power is turned off. DTP - Desk Top Publishing EASYPOINTER - (PE Term) A suite of programs, written by Albin Hessler, which try to make life easier for programmers who want to design and write programs for the Pointer Environment. ED - Extra Density or Extra-high Density. Refers to the 3.2 megabyte floppy disks for the QL, or their disk drives. EE - Extended Environment, a term used to describe the combination of PTR_GEN, WMAN and HOT_REXT which give you a system which enhances your QL by saving and restoring window contents, hotkeys, standard menus and so on. EGA - Enhanced Graphics Adaptor for the PC. Now largely superceded, this term is still used to refer to a particular type of screen display. On the QXL, for example, an EGA display mode refers to a 640x350 pixel display. E-MAIL - Electronic Mail. Commonly used by Internet enthusiasts to send messages etc to each other via the Internet. EPROM - Eraseable, Programmable, Read Only Memory. A special memory chip, which can be programmed with certain information (e.g. some extensions for the SuperBASIC language). Once programmed, you can only read information from it. If you expose a little window on it to strong ultra violet light (in a seealed container of course, you can buy special ones for this job) it will erase the program and you can then user a programmer device to save new information to it. FDD - Flopy Disk Drive. FTP - File Transfer Protocol, a term for a method to transfer files via the World Wide Web. GAL - Gate Array Logic, a type of logic chip used in the Qubide, for example. GB - Gigabyte, for 1,024 Megabytes, used to indicate the capacities of modern very large hard disk drives. GC - Gold Card. GIF - Graphics Interchange Format, a garphics file format from Compuserve. GLUE - A type of logic chip, as used on the QXL for example. Usually the chip which controls the interation of other peripheral chips. HD - (i) Hard Disk (ii) High Density, a type of floppy disk or its disk drive. HDD - Hard Disk Drive. HERMES - Not an abbreviation, this is the name for a replacement for the 8049 second processor in an original QL. It is sold by TF Services, and is designed to improve the handling of the keyboard, serial ports and so on. HIT - (PE Term) Pressing the SPACE bar or LEFT mouse button. Normally SELECTS something in a menu, but can be used to carry out some action if used on a loose item. HOT_REXT - Part of the Pointer Environment (or Extended Environment). This file controls the Hotkeys (see below), and provides a number of new words for the BASIC language, allowing control of hotkeys to start programs, or perform specific actions independent of the program you are using at the time. For example, you can define a hotkey which when pressed would start a copy of Quill whatever you were doing at the time. HOTKEY - See HOT_REXT above. HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language (or Hyper Text Meta Language in the USA). A name for a language used to create pages for the World Wide Web. I/O - Input/Output, or getting information in and out of a computer. IDE - Intelligent Drive Electronics or Integrated Drive Electronics. A method of connecting drives to computers, where the main interface electronics are part of the drive rather than the computer circuit board. I2C - The bus system used by Minerva Mk 2 from TF Services. INFORMATION OBJECT - (PE Term) Quite simply, an object that gives information to the user. It may be a word, some text or a filename, a small picture or anything else. Always lives in an info window. INFORMATION WINDOW - (PE Term) A small area of the programs display that serves no other purpose than to give the user some information. May have one or more info objects contained in it. INT - Interrupt or Integer. An interrupt is a signal to a microprocessor within a computer that occurs on a regular basis, normally 50 or 60 times a second, or from time to time as required. It means that something is demanding attention and time from the processor, requesting that the processor suspends what it's doing and diverts to whatever device or routine that needs the attention. ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network. Basically a posh name for the digital telephone network. I use ISDN a lot for sending broadcast audio as part of my day-job, and when it fails I tend to call it 'It Sends Dilwyn Nuts'! ISO - International Standards Organisation. JPEG - Joint Photographic Expert Group, name of a body to agree on graphics compression standards for still pictures. Used generally to describe a file saved in this format. Not in widespread use on the QL, though there is a QL PD program to convert between JPEG and GIF, and there are several GIF file readers for the QL. KB - Abbreviation for KiloByte, or 1,024 byte. The unit 1,024 is used rather than 1,000 as it is a number which is a power of 2, which makes it easier and more logical to handle in computer terms. 1,024 KB makes 1 MB or 1 MegaByte, see below. KHz - kiloHerts, a measure of the number of cycles per second. LONG WORD - 2 Words or 4 bytes of computer memory. Sometimes referred to as a 32 bit value. FOr those who understand binary numbers, this corresponds to a 32 digit binary number, so a long word of computer memory can store quite large values. LOOSE ITEM - (PE Term) A slight contradiction. Loose items are only loose until the programmer ties them down. Then they become fixed items ! Used on a programs display to carry out some action when HIT or DOne by the user. LQ - Letter quality, a term used to describe print quality. LSB - Least Significant Byte, the lowest 8 bits of a numeric value. When you write the number as a binary form, this will be the rightmost 8 bits. Can also stand for Least Significant Bit when specifically referring to one single bit of the data's value. MANAGED WINDOW - (PE Term) What every well behaved PE program needs to have. This causes the PE to take control of the program and keep its screen refreshed when picked. Normally the first window opened by a program. Not all programs are managed, but probably should be. MB - Megabyte, or 1,024 KiloBytes, or 1,024 times 1,024 bytes. Nowadays, computer memory is often so large that it is measured in MB rather than Bytes. MENU - A list of items on the screen, from which you are invited by the computer to choose one or more of those items. MENU_REXT - (PE Term) The file that should be loaded into your QL so that you can take advantage of Jochen Merz's MENU EXTENSIONS. These make file selecting etc much more fun and are probably the first contact many people have with the PE. MHz - megaHerts, a measure of the number of cycles per second. MINERVA - A replacement operating system chip for the QL. The original versions of the QDOS operating system for the QL did have a few problems which were not sorted out before the QL was discontinued. Minerva is produced by TF Services, and fixes these problems and provides a few extra facilities as well. MODEM - MOdulator/DEModulator. MOVE - (PE Term) An action that you can perform to move a program's display to another part of the QL's display. Very handy when you have more than one program trying to use the same bit of the screen at the same time. Usually carried out by judicious use of CTRL and F4. MP - Multi Processing MSB - Most Significant Byte, the top 8 bits of a number (the leftmost part when written as a binary string). Can also refer to Most Significant Bit when referring to one particular bit of a data's value. MT - Multi Tasking. NLQ - Near Letter Quality, a term used to describe print quality. OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer. OS - Operating System, the program or collection of routines that controls the computer. OUTLINE - (PE Term) Basically, the area of the screen that is managed by the PE for a particular program. Everything that the program does must take place within this outline. Moving the pointer outside of the outline will normally result in a NO ENTRY or PADLOCK pointer appearing. PAL - Programmable Array Logic, a type of logic chip. PAN BARS - (PE Term) Vertical lines of arrows, sometimes seen on the left and right edges of an application window. These allow whatever is being shown in the application window to be panned left and right to show more of it. PAR - abbreviation used to represent a parallel printer port, sometimes known as a Centronics compatible printer port. On an original QL, you'd tell programs to print to SER1 or SER2. If you use the printer port on a Super Gold Card, or on a PC fitted with a QXL or QPC emulator, it will usually have the name PAR as far as the QL system is concerned, so you'd tell programs to print to PAR instead of SER1, for example. A parallel port differs from a serial port in that it can send several bits of information down a cable at the same time (usually 8) rather than 1 at a time as would be the case with a serial port. Printing via a parallel port would usually be faster than to a serial port, but the disadvantages could be that (a) cables have to be shorter than serial links for reliability, and (b) information can usually only go out from the computer to whatever is connected, you cannot get much information back, so you couldn't connect two computers together to share information via the parallel port on a Super Gold Card, for example. PATTERN - (PE Term) These hold the colour information that is combined within a BLOB to display something on the screen. Also known as half a sprite. PCB - Printed Circuit Board. PCL - Printer Control Language, a Hewlett Packard system for controlling printers. There are various levels of this, up to level 5, and commonly used with laser printers. Also used to some degree by Deskjet and similar inkjet printers. PD - Public Domain. PE - The Pointer Environment. POINTER - (PE Term) Used to show where you are on the screen. May be moved by mouse or by cursor keys. The pointer will normally be a small arrow head, but individual programmers have been known to change it to something else. Changes whenever a move or size operation is being carried out and also when other events are taking place. Actually gives quite a lot of information. POINTER ENVIRONMENT - Adds a pointer, non-destructive windows, and Items ( Loose and Menu) to the QL. Composed of PTR_GEN, WMAN, & HOT_REXT. PRIMARY WINDOW - (PE Term) See MANAGED WINDOW. PSU - Power Supply Unit. PTR_GEN - The pointer interface for the QL's windowing system. PTR_GEN is responsible for controlling a mouse pointer on the screen and for saving and restoring the contents of program windows as you switch between programs with CTRL-C (see above). PTR_GEN is supplied with most pointer environment programs, such as QPAc2. QDOS - QL Drive Operating System or QL Disk Operating System. This is the operating system of the QL, which is basically what makes it tick. QDOS is responsible for starting up the QL when you switch it on, and provides the necessary code and routines to let you do anything from printing to the screen to multi-tasking your programs. QLay - A freeware QL emulator program for Windows 95, DOS and Linux based systems. Allows these machines to run QL software, and can be downloaded free from the Web site http://www.inter.nl.net/hcc/A.Jaw.Venema QMENU - The short name for Jochen Merz's MENU EXTENSIONS as described above (MENU_REXT). QPac - QL Pointer Accessories. Either of two packages produced by Tony Tebby to enhance what you can do with your QL. QPAc1 gave you a number of small but useful programs such as a calculator and typewriter and alarm clock, while QPAc2 gives you a file handling menu, buttons and all sorts of utilities to help you with the multi-tasking and windowing system on the QL. QPC - QL on PC, a commercial program which allows a PC to run QL software by making the PC pretend to be a QL as far as the software is concerned. QRAM - Predecessor to QPAc2, a collection of menus and utilities vaguely along the lines of QPAc2. QRAM is no longer available. QTYP - QL Typing checker, from Tony Tebby. QVME - A graphics card available for the Atari ST QL emulator. VME stands for Versa Module Europe, enabling a card size called Eurocard to be used on 68000 based computer systems such as Ataris. QXL - A card which plugs into an ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) slot on a PC, allowing it to run QL software much faster than an original QL. I have no idea what the X stands for - probably implying extended QL or something like that. RAM - Random Access Memory, the memory used in the QL. You can read information from and write information to this type of computer memory. RAMDISK - A QL device for storing information in memory in a manner broadly similar to a floppy disk or microdrive cartridge. Fast, but contents lost when you switch off or reset the QL. Useful for copying files to temporarily on a single drive computer, for example. RGB - Red, Green, Blue. Three components of a colour video monitor signal. ROM - Read Only Memory, or memory which you can only read information from. Once information has been programmed into this type of memory, that's it, it can't be changed. The QL's operating system, a program or collection of small utilities which determines how the QL starts up and operates, is stored in this type of memory. RS232C - I don't know what the letters stand for, but basically this is the name of the system used for sending data 1 bit at a time down a serial link such as the SER1 or SER2 sockets on the QL. RTC - Real Time Clock. RTM or RTFM. Something a trader or programmer is likely to tell you when you haven't read the instructions. Stands for Read The Manual, but I'll let you guess what the F in the second version stands for. RTS - Request To Send, an RS232C signal pin. R/W - Read/Write. Getting information from or sending information to something. SB - SuperBASIC SBASIC - An enhanced version of the QL's SuperBASIC, supplied with the SMSQ operating system. SCR - Screen window. A type of window on the display where you can PRINT information to. SCR windows have no keyboard facility, so you cannot use the INPUT command to allow the user to enter any information in that type of window. SCROLL BARS - (PE Term) Horizontal lines of arrows that cause an application menu to be scrolled up and down when HIT or DOne. SGC - Super Gold Card. SELECTED - (PE Term) The state of a menu item or loose item after it has been HIT. This normally causes the item in question to change colour, or show in some other way that it has been selected. SER - One of the serial ports on a QL. This is the name by which these sockets on your computer are known to the computer and to the software it runs. On a PC, the sockets might be called COM1: or COM2:, but the QL emulators such as QPC and QXL always refer to them as SER1 or SER2. SER is an abbreviation for SERIAL, which means that every bit of information sent to these ports is sent one after the other, in serial fashion, rather than say 8 bits at a time. See PAR above. SIMM - Single Inline Memory Module, a type of memory card used by PCs and possibly by the Goldfire expansion unit when eventually available. SIZE - (PE Term) The action that may be allowed by some programs so that their display can be extended and shortened so that more or less room is taken up on the QL's display. Not always present. Usually activated by CTRL and F3. SLEEP - (PE Term) Putting a program to sleep is a good way of clearing it from the screen but keeping it handy so that it can be used later. Normally done via the CTRL and F1 keys. May need the QPAC2 button frame in order to work. Similar to 'minimising' a PC Windows program but without the pretty pictures. SMSQ - New and enhanced operating system for the QXL, from Miracle Systems. Unlike SMSQ/E, this does not include the Pointer Environment. The letters SMS were never well defined, some say it stands for Single-user Multitasking System, while others say it stands for Small Microcomputer System, and others say Smart Micro System! SMSQ/E - Extended version of the SMSQ operating system for the QL. This version comes with the equivalent of the pointer environment files PTR_GEN, WMAN and HOT_REXT built in and offers a large number of additional features over SMSQ, e.g additional devices and device features, device buffering and the ability to change display resolution. SPRITE - (PE Term) What you get when you put a BLOB and a PATTERN together. A sprite holds both shape and colour data and can be used as an info object or a pointer. Usually serves to represent something such as a logo and in the best programs, sprites are worth a thousand words or two as they provide information without requiring words. SS - Single Sided. Refers to a type of floppy disk, or its drive. SuperBASIC - The QL version of BASIC. This was designed by a lady called Jan Jones for Sinclair. SVGA - Super Video Graphics Array. A PC graphics card. On the QXL or QPC an SVGA mode implies a display of size 800 pixels across and 600 down. SW - Shareware, a method of software distribution where the author lets you use either a cut-down version of a program, or a time-limited piece of software. If you like and wish to continue to use the full version of the software, you are expected to contact the author and pay a fee, for which you'll sometimes get a non-limited version of the software and product support. Sometimes used as an abbreviation for "software" only. TCP/IP - TCP (short for Transmission Control Protocol) IP (short for Internet Protocol). These two are usually used together as a TCP/IP 'stack'. It's called that because TCP builds on IP (hence the actual abbreviation is 'TCP over IP'). It is called a 'stack' because IP is built to work on the actual hardware which implements internet communications. TCP is built on IP to provide advanced communications features, and possible applications are built on TCP to allow the user to use the communication capabilites, in a layer-like fashion. TCP is protocol between hosts in packet-switched computer communication networks, and in interconnected systems of such networks. The TCP part (or 'layer') handles Data Transfer, Error Detection and Correction, Flow COntrol, Multiplexing (emulating several communications channels over a single medium), Connecting to hosts, and Security aspects of communications. IP on the other hand is a protocol which handles how packets are distributed over packet switched networks, including addressing (where the data is sent from and where it's received), transmitting and receiving, and packing of non-packed, or stream data. Usually the IP layer handles the actual hardware which is used for Internet communication, although there might be another layer in case different hardware can be used (e.g. telephone lines, Ethernet, etc). _[thanks, Nasta]_ THING - Horrible term for a general purpose facility built into the enhanced QL systems with pointer environment etc. The designers found it hard to give this facility an accurate name due to the general nature of the beast, so they called it THING. That same generality makes it hard to describe in simple terms what a Thing is. The closest we can get is that it is a part of memory with a name of some kind. This part of memory contains a facility of some description (it may be a menu, an extension, a routine, a program and so on). The operating system maintains a list of these 'things' and a programmer can use them by looking through the list for a thing's name, and call it as required. Don't worry too much about things as a user - the QPAc2 manual says that 'things rarely go bump in the night', you can manage quite well without having to fully understand them. Anyone who used Michael Crowe's QL MegaToolkit will know that it provided a broadly similar facility called a WOTSIT. Who chooses these names, I wonder? TK2 - Abbreviation for Toolkit 2, a commonly used set of extensions to SuperBASIC providing additional 'words' to enhance the BASIC language understood by the QL. It was originally written by QL guru Tony Tebby and available as a plug in EPROM chip for the QL. Nowadays, it is commonly built into expansion cards such as the Trump Card, Gold Card and Super Gold Card, and also included with the SMSQ versions of the QL operating system. If your system does not have a copy of this (only older systems, or unexpanded systems are likely to suffer this) it is well worth getting one. TLA - Three Letter Acronym, such as BTW for By The Way. TT - (i) Tony Tebby, QL designer and guru. (ii) A version of the Atari ST, for which you can get a QL emulator. ULA - Uncommitted Logic Array, a type of logic chip. UNAVAILABLE - (PE Term) Similar to an overdraft. A menu item or loose item that will not let you select it, no matter how hard you try. It will normally be drawn in some manner that shows that it is not usable. May become available later on in the program when some set of circumstances has been set up. UNIX - UNiplexed Information and Computing Service, an operating system written by Ken Thompson of Bell Labs. uQLx - A shareware QL emulator for Unix based systems. See QL Today volume 1 issue 4 for more details. The author, Richard Zidlicky, can be contacted by email at rdzidlic@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de VGA - Video Graphics Adaptor for the PC. On the QXL, for example, a VGA display refers to a screen mode 640 pixels wide by 480 pixels deep. WAKE - (PE Term) Your program will wake up if it has been put to sleep and you DO it. Normally causes the program to redisplay its screens and lets you carry on from where you were. A WAKE can be forced by using CTRL and F2 together and this will cause the updating of the display if required. Lists of files on a device perhaps, would need a WAKE if the disc was changed. WMAN - The Window Manager. This is part of the Pointer Environment (or Extended Environment). Provides a set of menu and display routines which a programmer can access to ensure that programs have a 'standard' appearance, or programs which look consistent with each other. Always used in conjunction with PTR_GEN (see above). WORD - Unit of computer memory. A Word is 2 bytes, or 16 bits of memory. Can store numbers from 0 up to binary 1111 1111 1111 1111. WORM - Write Once, Read Many times. A device which can only be saved to once, and from then on only read, like a CD. WP - Word Processor. Also the term used for the USA equivalent of Quill. WWW - World Wide Web - a layer of the Internet, devised in Switzerland some time after the basic Internet came into domestic use. WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get, normally used when specifying how close what you see on the screen will be to how it would appear when printed on paper. ZIP - (i) Term used for a commonly used program to compress files into a single large archive. (ii) A type of removable cartridge mini-hard disk or superfloppy, made by a company called Iomega. I hope you find this list useful. If you come across any other commonly used QL abbreviation, let me know and I'll add it to the list and update it from time to time. TTFN (Ta Ta For Now) Dilwyn Jones