INK

Syntax

INK [#ch,] colour or

INK [#ch,] colour1,colour2 [,pattern]

Location

QL ROM

This command sets the ink colour used inside the given window ch (default #1). Since the advent of the Extended Colour Drivers under SMSQ/E v2.98+ the scope of colours accepted by this command has been much enhanced and depends upon the colour mode selected for the current program. As a result, the ink colour can be either a solid colour if the first syntax is used (in which case colour can be any integer in the range 0..16777215) or a composite colour made up of the three parameters supplied in the second syntax (colour1 and colour2 must both be in the range dictated by the current MODE).

Luckily, SMSQ/E allows you to include binary and hexadecimal numbers directly in programs (eg INK $f800) which may make the non-standard QL colours easier to use. The way in which colours are handled depends upon the operating system. On most systems, only the Standard QL Colour Drivers are supported. However, SMSQ/E v2.98+ can be used to access further Extended Colour Drivers by configuring SMSQ/E to start with them loaded, or using the start-up screen on QPC.

STANDARD COLOUR DRIVERS

MODE 4 and MODE 8

This applies to standard QL operating systems, or can be set under SMSQ/E v2.98+ with the command DISP_COLOUR 0,800,600 or by altering the configuration of the operating system. There are eight solid colours which have the following values (although only four of these colours are available in MODE 4):

Value

MODE 8 colour

MODE 4 colour

0

black

black

1

blue

black (should be avoided)

2

red

red

3

magenta

red (should be avoided)

4

green

green

5

cyan

green (should be avoided)

6

yellow

white (should be avoided)

7

white

white

The values in MODE 4 which are marked “should be avoided” can be used on standard QLs, but lead to compatibility problems when run under the Enhanced Colour Drivers (see below). Other integer values in the range 8 to 255 are allowed, but these are generally ‘composite’ colours and repeats of other values.

EXTENDED COLOUR DRIVERS

The following is a description of the various colour modes available under the Extended Colour Drivers provided by SMSQ/E v2.98+. These are available once SMSQ/E is configured to use the Extended Colour Drivers. DISP_COLOUR can be used to switch between the standard and extended colour drivers.

QL Colour Mode

This is selected with the command COLOUR_QL and is the default when a program is executed. For the purposes of INK, PAPER, STRIP etc commands, it provides the same colours as under the Standard QL Colour Mode (provided the standard colour=0 to colour=7 is used), except that MODE 4 programs can actually access all 8 colours not just the standard 4. However, the actual colours which represent each of the different values can be amended by changing the palette (see PALETTE_QL). This can be used, for example, to rectify programs which display the wrong colours because they presume INK 3 would always be the same as INK 2.

8 Bit Colour Mode

This is supported on the Aurora motherboard (not yet implemented) and QPC, QXL and the Q40/Q60. It is selected with COLOUR_PAL and allows colour to be in the range 0…255. This is the PAL value and is hardware independent - refer to Appendix 16 for a full list of the colours available.

The colours which represent each of the 256 values allowed can be amended by changing the palette (see PALETTE_8). For this mode, the INK parameter should be the PAL value listed in the table. If a stipple is required, the two composite PAL colours will need to be specified explicitly - see below.

Native Colour Mode (8 or 16 bit colour)

This should be supported on all implementations of SMSQ/E v2.98+ and is selected with COLOUR_NATIVE. The range supported by colour and the effects all depend upon the display hardware currently in use. As a result, under Aurora, it is similar to COLOUR_PAL in that it only supports 8 bit colours, but the colour is specified by the Native Colour Value instead of the PAL value. On the QPC, QXL and Q40/Q60, it supports 65536 colours as standard. The value required for INK, PAPER, STRIP etc. depends upon the hardware in use - look at the tables in Appendix 16 for the appropriate hardware and then the Native Colour Value to use. It may be easier to use hexadecimal or binary to specify the colour, for example INK $F81F for magenta on QPC/QXL.

24 Bit Colour Mode

This is only supported on QPC (dependent on hardware). It is selected with COLOUR_24 and allows colour to be in the range 0..16777215. Due the values possible in 24 bit colour mode, it is essential that hexadecimal is used to describe colours. Colours are defined as a 3 byte value representing a value for red, green and blue respectively. For example, yellow would be INK $FFFF00.

COMPOSITE COLOURS

These are colours made up of either two or three values, for example:

INK 2,7
INK 1,7,2
INK $F800,$FDBF,1

Depending upon the combinations, they may not be displayed correctly on a television.

INK colour1,colour2

This creates a composite colour made up of the two given colours in a checkerboard pattern (stipple 3).

INK colour1,colour2,stipple

This creates a composite colour which is a mixture of the two given colours, and displayed in the given stipple pattern.

The values for stipple are:

Value

Pattern

0

Dots

1

Horizontal stripes

2

Vertical stripes

3

Checkerboard

If you wish to calculate the equivalent single parameter for Standard QL Colour Mode, you will need to set various bits of colour by referring to the following table (note that this cannot be used under the Extended Colour Drivers except under COLOUR_QL):

Stipple

BITS 76

BITS 543

BITS 210

Colour

Dots

00

000

000

Black

Vertical Lines

01

001

001

Blue

Horizontal lines

10

010

010

Red

Checkerboard

11

011

011

Magenta

11

100

100

Green

11

101

101

Cyan

11

110

110

Yellow

11

111

111

White

NOTE

Turbo and Supercharge cannot compile the THOR’s floating point colours as they expect all parameters to be integers. Use IO_TRAP instead, for example:

a=IO_TRAP(#ch,39,colour): REMark Sets the PAPER colour.
a=IO_TRAP(#ch,40,colour): REMark  Sets the STRIP colour.
a=IO_TRAP(#ch,41,colour): REMark  Sets the INK colour.

Unlike the PAPER command, if you use IO_TRAP here, you will also need to set the STRIP colour explicitly.

THOR XVI NOTE

The THOR XVI allows a total of 16 colours in MODE 12 in the range 0 to 7.5 (stipple will actually fall in the range 0…1023). If you add .5 to the normal colour, this switches on the THOR’s intensity bit, meaning that for example, the resultant colour for INK 1.5 is somewhere between black and blue (ie. a very dark blue). You can also add .25 to each colour, which will result in a stipple mixture of colours (details unknown at present).

CROSS-REFERENCE

PAPER and STRIP also set colours within windows. RMODE can be used to read the current colour mode. COLOUR_QL, COLOUR_PAL, COLOUR_NATIVE and COLOUR_24 will also affect the colours produced. PALETTE_QL and PALETTE_8 can be used to change the palette of colours available. DISP_COLOUR can be used to switch from Extended Colour Drivers to Standard Colour Drivers. Also refer to INVERSE. Please also look at the QL Display appendix (Appendix 16 - A16 The QL Display).