Star Micronics NX-10 manual

NX-10 USER’S MANUAL NOT INTENDED FOR SALE PN 80820128[...]

Federal Communications Commission Radio Frequency Interference Statement Thw rquipment generates and uses radio frequency energy and if not installed and used properly. that is. in strl~“l accordance Lvith the manufacturer’s instructions, may cause in- terference to radio and [etexxion reception. It has been type tested and found to comply with[...]

I Table of Contents Chapter 1 Setting Up Your Printer Where shall we put it? What have we here? Removing the printer cover Removing the packing tube Installing the ribbon cartridge Chapter 2 Getting to Know Your Printer Controls and parts of the printer Parts of the printer Controls and indicators Extra functions Other controls Selecting and loadin[...]

23 Chapter 3 Basic Printing Some basics of BASIC A new language! First steps ASCII codes and the CHR$ function Control codes The escape codes A note on command syntax Some special kinds of text Near Letter Quality characters Italic printing Underlining Superscripts and subscripts Changing the print pitch Expanded print Condensed print Proportional [...]

Chapter 5 Special Features of the Printer Now hear this 61 Resetting the printer Putting your printer to sleep Printing the bottom of the sheet Backspace, delete, and cancel text Printing zeroes Immediate-print Adjusting the width of space between characters Uni-directional printing The seven bit dilemma Block graphics characters and special symbol[...]

., .,. . Chapter 7 Dot Graphics Comparing dot graphics with download 101 characters Using the dot graphics commands Specifying the number of columns of dots Specifying the graphics data Combining text and graphics Printing a design or logo Plotting with your printer How the program works High resolution graphics Compatibility with existing software[...]

- ..” Appendix D Function Codes Commands to control print style Font style controls Font pitch controls 165 Special print modes Controlling the vertical print position Line feed and reverse line feed Form feed and related commands Top/bottom margins and vertical tabs Controlling the horizontal print position Download character commands Dot graphi[...]

CHAPTER 1 SETTING UP YOUR PRINTER Subjects we’ll cover in Chapter 1 include- . Choosing a suitable place for your printer; l Unpacking your new printer; l Setting it up. WHERE SHALL WE PUT IT? Before you do anything else, give some thought to where you’ll be using your printer. Obviously, it will be somewhere near your computer. And both printe[...]

2 WHAT HAVE WE HERE? Now let’s take a look at what’s in the carton. Open it up and check each item in the box against Figure l-l. There should be four items. . . -- -_ _ F ‘igure l- 1. Check to make sure you have all four items: 1) printer, - 2) paper guide, 3) ribbon cartridge, and 4) user’s manual. Let’s move on the next step. n Removin[...]

lj 3 Removing the printer cover is easy. Lift up the back of the cover to disengage the two tabs at the front and then lift it off the rest of the way. To replace it, just slide the tabs in at the front and lower it into place. Figure 1-2 shows the proper posi- tion and movement for both removing and replacing the cover. . . . . . _ . .gure 1-2. Re[...]

Figure 1-3. Remove the protective tube from the carriage rail. Up to this point, we’ve been clearing the decks for action, so to speak. Only one more thing left to do before we can start printing - install the ribbon cartridge. n Installing the ribbon cartridge This printer uses a neat, easy-to-change ribbon cartridge so you don’t have to spend[...]

c_ / . 5 Warning: The print head gets hot during operation, so let it cool off before you touch it. Figure 1-4. Press the cartridge into place until the holdmg springs snap into place. 3. Using the guide holders as a fulcrum with the ribbon fac- ing away from you, as shown in Figure 1-4, lightly press the cartridge down until the two holder springs[...]

6 Print head Figure 1-5. All you have to do is to slide the print head carriage manually to your right or left, then the ribbon slips down by itself into its proper position.[...]

., CHAPTER 2 GETTING TO KNOW YOUR PRINTER Subjects we’ll cover in Chapter 2 include - l Parts of the printer - what they’re for and how to use them; l Paper selection and loading; l Adjustment; l Connecting your printer to the computer; l Extra functions with the control panel. CONTROLS AND PARTS OF THE PRINTER H Parts of the printer First, we?[...]

r ’ I Tractor feed unit nterf Power cord ’ Power switch Figure 2- 1. Front and rear views of the printer TRACTOR FEED UNIT - The drive gear and sprockets of the tractor feed unit move sprocket-feed paper through the printer.[...]

I . _ . w. L-. . . w.. . . . LI dI 9 I. PLATEN - This is the rubber cylinder that carries paper to the print head. INTERFACE CONNECTOR - On the back of the printer, this connector is used to connect your computer to the printer. n Controls and indicators Now let’s take a tour around the controls, starting with the control panel on the right. Ther[...]

10 n Extra functions There are eleven more functions that are not directly specified on the control panel. You can use six of them by press- ing a key (or keys) when you turnon the power; five others are activated by pressing two control keys at once. For details, please refer to the end of this chapter. n Other controls There are other controls, n[...]

11 you’ll be using often. This lever controls the pressure of the paper against the platen. It has four settings: g - The top setting is used when you want to load paper in the printer. c - The second setting is for normal single sheets. fi - The third is for sprocket-feed paper. 4 - The bott om one is used when you want to release the paper comp[...]

19 OK? Let’s start. 1. Move the sprockets on the tractor feed unit all the way to the ends. 2. Slide the sheet guide all the way to the right. 3. With the ribs of the paper guide toward you and the sliding adjuster at the bottom left, insert the guide into the slot at the back of the printer cover. Sheet guide / Sprocket ‘igure 2-4. Raise the p[...]

L Figure 2-5. . . . . . . . . *. l’rop up the paper guide by inserting me guise stana in the notches provided for it. 1 1 ‘igure 2-6. You can insert a sheet of paper by using the release lever. .,[...]

14 9. Now set the release lever to the auto-feed setting-the top position. The printer will advance the paper automatically. 10. When the paper stops, set the release lever for single sheets again. To align paper that is not in straight- . Set the release lever to the adjustment setting. l Straighten the paper and adjust it for the margins you want[...]

I I . ‘,,, ,’ 15 5. Flip the clamp levers backward. This allows the two sprocket units to move freely right and left so you can align them with the holes in the paper. 6. Feed the end of the paper into the slot next to the platen cover plate. 7. Fit the holes in the paper over the sprocket pins so the paper is even, and clamp the sprocket units[...]

ADJUSTING THE PRINT HEAD The distance between the print head and the platen must-be adjusted to accommodate papers of different thicknesses. To make this adjustment, move the adjustment lever, which is under the printer cover and immediately in front of the release lever (Figure 2-9). Pulling the adjustment lever towards you will widen the gap; pus[...]

*_ . 17 1. Make sure both your computer and printer are turned off. 2. Connect one end of the interface cable to the connector socket at the right rear of the printer as shown in Figure 2-10. 3. Connect the other end of the cable to your computer as described in the computer manual. /- Figure 2-10. This is how you connect the cable. ‘EXTRA FUNCTI[...]

18 n Self-tests Your printer has two built-in programs that print out sample lines of letters, numbers, and other characters-to show you that everything’s in good working order. Self-test 1 is the long version, and self-test 2 is the short one. You can use either one to show the characters available in the printer, to check the in- stallation of [...]

n Hex dump Can you guess what a “hex dump” is? No, it’s not where witches throw away useless spells. A hex dump is an advanced ability of your printer that you can use, in certain cases, to find a problem with your system. Fortunately, such problems rarely arise but the hex dump is available if one does. We’ll go over hex dump in Chapter 4.[...]

1. Plug in the printer (don’t turn it on yet). 2. While holding both the Mode and Bold keys, turn on the power switch. Right margin set **: Hold down L- Left margin set ~---____ Figure 2-13. You can set many functions by the combinations o the control panel keys while in the Off Line mode. n Setting print start position When you want to align the[...]

Mode key - Left margin set Paper Feed key - Right margin set 3. While holding the two keys, the print head moves across the page step-by-step. 4. When the print head goes to the position where you want to set margin, release the two keys. So the printer acknowledges the margin with the sound of beep.[...]

22 MEMO[...]

CHAPTER 3 BASIC PRINTING Subjects we’ll cover in Chapter 3 include- * Listing BASIC programs on the printer; l How a program prints things; l Control codes, escape codes, and command syn- tax; l Near letter quality (NLQ) characters; l Fixed and proportional character spacing; l Special printing - Printing in italics, Underlining, Superscripts and[...]

; 24 language, perhaps recalling the rigors of high-school Latin. Others are unnerved by anything having to do with computers. Well don’t be! In the first place, BASIC may well be the easiest language you could learn: it has a vary limited vocabulary, a simple but precise grammar, and its dialects - unlike those of English - usually different fro[...]

25 output to the screen. Other computers, notably the Commodore C-64, require you to open the printer as a numbered device then to direct output to that device. For example, you might type the following to print “Hello!” or to list a program in the C-64’s memory. OPEN4,4 OPEN4,4 CMD4 CMD4 LIST PRINT "Hello! 'I CLOSE 4 CLOSE4 Here, t[...]

would enter LPRINT CHR$(65). To make the printer’s bell sound, we would LPRINT CHR$(7). In general, we print a character by entering LPRINT CHR$(ASCII code) to the printer. We can also use hex ASCII codes. Although we use only decimal ASCII codes in this manual, you should understand at least what a hex code is. “Hex” is short for hexadecimal[...]

27 line feed -the name of the code UJ’) -its abbreviation ASCII 10 -its decimal value ASCII &HOA -its hexadecimal value (the &H signifies CHR$(lO) CTRL- J hex) -the way it’s used in BASIC -the way you send it from a keyboard Of course, most of the time we don’t need to bother with these. Our computers are smart enough to know that whe[...]

28 This command that turns on expanded printing. (ESC), as we mentioned earlier, is the escape code (which is ASCII code 27). A letter or number in quotes (such as the “W” above) means that the character should be sent to the printer (without the quotes). In our example, you should send a capital W following the escape code. In BASIC, you could[...]

29 But for the final printout, try NLQ. The program below shows how. 10 1 Demo 20 LPRINT 30 LPRINT 40 LPRINT 50 LPRINT of NLQ character set CHR$(27);"xl"; "This line shows NEAR LETTER QUALITY! CHR$(27);"xO"; "This line shows standard print." In this program, line 20 selects NLQ characters with (ESC) “~“1 comma[...]

f Demo of italic and :; LPRINT CHR$(27)*"4"* 30 LPRINT "This li;e ii 40 LPRINT CHR$( 27);"5y 50 LPRINT "This line is Here is what you should get: roman in ITALIC characters." in ROMAN characters." In this program, line 20 turns italic on with (ESC) “4”, and line 40 turns italic off with (ESC) “5”. W Underl[...]

31 In this program underline is turned on in line 20 with (ESC) “ -“l, and then off in line 40 with (ESC) “-“O. There’s a new little wrinkle in this program, though. The semicolons at the end of the first three lines told BASIC that those lines were to be continued. Therefore, BASIC didn’t send a carriage return and line feed at the end[...]

32 Here line 30 turns on superscripts with (ESC) “SO. It’s turn- ed off in line 50 with (ESC) “T”. Then between printing text, subscripts are turned on in line 70 with (ESC) “S’l, and finally off in line 90. Again, everything prints on one line because of the semicolons. CHANGING THE PRINT PITCH In “printer talk,” the number of char[...]

33 Line 20 turns on elite pitch with (ESC) “M”. Line 30 prints a line at 12 characters per inch. The (ESC) “P” in line 40 resets the printer to pica pitch and line 50 prints a line in pica pitch. W Expanded print Each of the print pitches can be enlarged to twice its normal width. This is called expanded print. Try this program to see how i[...]

34 Now the results look like this: When you turn on expanded print with (ESC) “W”l it stays on until you turn it off with (ESC) “W”0. Table 3-6 Table 3-6 Expanded print commands Expanded print commands n Condensed print Each of the print pitches also can be condensed to its normal width. This is called condensed print. Try this program to s[...]

Table 3-7 Condensed print commands Function Control code Condensed ON CHR$(15) 01 (ESC) CHR$(15) Condensed OFF CHR$(18) By combining expanded print and condensed print with the two pitches, this printer has eight different character widths available. Enter this program to see how the print pitches, expanded print and condensed print can be combined[...]

This line is CONDENSED ELITE pitch, This line is CONDENSED PICA pitch. This line is NORMRL ELITE pitch. l-l-1 :i, vii :I. :i n e :i, 5; 111 IX? Pi u I,,., P 1: c:: (4 fl:, i t c3 t-l n This line is EXPANDED CONDENSED ELITE. This line is EXPANDED CONDENSED PICA. l-h i .!si i?z EXF'ANDED ELI-i-E, '-'["" #--r -j. K;. ji- cc;;;[...]

When you run this program you should get this: This line is NORMAL ELITE printing. This line is F’ROF’ORTIONAL ELITE. “r1.7j.:~ :/.j.I-e j.!ii; r~~I::;(:)~::~(::)~~1-~Ollnj... p:I:C::A. T l-1 i 5; 1. :i. r1 e i 5 NC:) R PI Ci L.. F’ I: CA 1:) r i n .t i ri g y Line 20 selects the elite pitch and line 40 turns on the propor- tional printin[...]

38 - Try them now with this little program: f boldface and emphasized 2': ~PEE EHR$(~~) ;"G"; 30 LPRINT "This iine is BOLDFACE printing." 40 LPRINT CHR$(27);"E"; 50 LPRINT "This line is BOLDFACE and EMPHASIZED." 60 LPRINT CHR$(27);"H"; 70 LPRINT "This line is EMPHASIZED printing.'* 80[...]

39 more efficiently. You have at your disposal a unique command that lets you choose any valid combination of print modes and pitch. This is the Master Print mode command. It looks like this: (ESC) “!” n Here, the value of n defines the print style to be selected. The value of n can range from 0 to 255, which is the range of values that can be [...]

To better understand the way the print modes work, consider that each mode except pica (pica is the default) has a separate switch that can turned on and off via software. Once the switch is on, it stays on until turned off. When two modes that conflict are turned on at the same time, the printer must choose which one to use. For example, suppose y[...]

CHAPTER 4 FORMATTING TEXT Subjects we’ll cover in Chapter 4 include- * The carriage return and line feed; l The amount of space between lines; l Moving to the next page; l The number of lines on a printed page; l Horizontal and vertical tabs; l Setting margins- left, right, top and bottom; l Centering and aligning. Chapter 3 showed us all the bas[...]

42 Line feed is more complicated. Each time the printer receives a CHR$(lO) it both advances the paper one line and returns the print head to the left margin, ready to start a new line. Now to add a little confusion-most (but not all) versions of BASIC add a line feed (CHR$(lO)) to every carriage return (CHR$(13)) that they send. If your version of[...]

43 NEW 10 20 2 2: 70 ( Demo of line spacing FOR I=1 TO 25 IF 1=13 THEN 60 LPRINT CHR$(27);"A";CHR$(I); LPRINT "THIS LINE SPACING IS SET TO";1 NEXT I LPRINT "LINE SPACING IS SET TO 1/6 INCH (NORMAL) .I! 80 LPRINT CHR$(27);"2" 90 END This is what you will get: ! ‘f .J!! ,’ : I IIMF .!i .- ..,. II IIn .:L L I[...]

Line 40 changes the line spacing. The command (ESC)“A” CHR$(n) changes the line spacing to n/72 of an inch. The loop that is started in line 20 increases the value of n (the variable I in this program) each time it is executed. So the line spacing in- creases as the program continues. Line 30 just shortcuts the loop when I= 13, since BASIC won?[...]

45 The program works just the same as before, but the line spac- ing are just one-third what they were. This is because (ESC j“3” CHR$(n) sets the line spacing to n/216 inch. Table 4-2 shows all the line spacing commands, including several “shortcut” commands for commonly used line spacings. Table 4-2 Line spacing commands n Moving down the[...]

46 NEW 10 ' Demo of' one-time line feeds 20 LPRINT "LINE NUMBER 1." ;; LPRINT "LINE NUMBER 2."; ' One-time line feed 50 LPRINT CHR$(27>;"J";CHR$(loO); 60 LPRINT "LINE NUMBER 3." 70 LPRINT "LINE NUMBER 4." 80 END Here is what your printer will produce: i-:1: IW IIl.JMEE:FI I. I I__[...]

47 PAGE CONTROL Now that we have seen how to control line spacing, we can go on to page control - positioning the printing on the page and ad- justing the paper length. n Form feed The simplest forms control code is the form feed. Form feed (or < FF > ) is CHR$(12) and causes the printer to move the paper to the top of the next sheet. Try it [...]

ed, for example, to print text in a multi-column magazine for- mat; print the first column, then reverse form feed back to.the top of the page to start the second column. The code for reverse form feed is easy to remember: < ESC > < FF > . 1 Function Table 4-3 Form feed commands 1 Control code Advance paper to top of next paw CHR$(12) R[...]

49 advance the paper to the top of the next form. Line 50 then prints its message. After you have run this program, turn off the printer and ad- just the top of form position. When you turn the printer back on the page length will reset to its normal setting (usually 11 in- ches). TOP AND BOTTOM MARGINS Many programs that you use a printer don’t [...]

10 ' Demo of top and bottom margins 60 LPRINT CHR$(12); :' form feed 70 FOR I=1 TO 150 80 LPRINT "THIS IS LINE";1 90 NEXT I 110 LPRINT CHR$(12) :' form feed 120 END When you run this program it will print 150 lines right down the page and across the perforations. When it’s done line 110 sends a form feed to advance to the[...]

THIS IS LINE 1 THIS IS ILINE 2 THIS IS LINE : THIS IS ILINE 4 THIS I5 LINE 5 THIS IS ILINE 6 THIS IS LINE 7 THIS IS LINE R THIS IS LINE 9 ; THIS I THIS ’ rHIS ; THIS , THIS I THIS LINE 50 LINE 51 LINE 52 LINE 53 LINE 54 LINE 55 I O1 ITHIS IS LINE 56 -. b- 0 0 0 0 --- 0 0 0 0 0 9 THIS IS LINE 164 THIS IS LINE 105 THIS IS LINE 106 THIS IS LINE 107 [...]

SETTING LEFT AND RIGHT MARGINS The left and right margins of this printer work just like a typewriter - once they are set all the printing is done between them. The commands to set the margins are given in the follow- ing table: Table 4-6 Left and right margin commands Try setting the margins with this program: 10 ' Demo of margins 20 GOSUB 70[...]

53 When you want to reset the margins to the default values, you have two choices. You can either turn the printer off and back on, or you can set margin values equal to the default values. This means that you should set a left margin of 0 and right margin of 80 in pica pitch. If you change the pitch of your printing after you set your margins, the[...]

15 LPRINT CHR$(27);"D";CHR$(7);CHR$(l4);CHR$(21); CHR$(O) (ESC)“D” is the command to begin setting horizontal tabs. It must be followed by characters representing the positions that you want the tabs set. In our program we are setting tabs in col- umns 7, 14, and 21. The CHR$(O) at the end ends the string of tabs. In fact, any charact[...]

,. 55 The aboslute horizontal tab command moves the print head to a specified position on the page. The position that you want the print head to move to (meaured from the left margin) is specified by the values of $21 and n2 in l/60-inch units using the formula nl + n2 x 256. Try this program to see how this works. 10 1 Demo of absolute horizontal [...]

80 LPRINT 90 END W Vertical tabs Vertical tabs have the same kinds of uses that horizontal tabs do - they just work in the other direction. Horizontal tabs allow you to reach a specific column on the page no matter where you start from. Vertical tabs are the same. If you have a vertical tab set at line 20, a vertical tab (or <VT >) will move [...]

j . 1-I-i I HC) TAM I wx.m-1-i-4 -rAb.[...]

., Add one more line to the program to demonstrate one more feature of vertical tabs. 80 LPRINT CHR$(ll);"FIFTH TAB." Now when you run the program the first page looks just like before, but line 80 sends one more <VT> than there are tabs. This doesn’t confuse your printer - it advances the paper to the next tab position which happ[...]

10 1 Demo of vertical tab channels 20 LPRINT CHR$(27>;"b';CHR$(l>;CHR$(lO);CHR$(2O); CHR$(O) ; 30 CLHPRHl~oT)CHR$(27);"b";CHR$(2);CHR$(15);CHR$(25); . 2 40 ~~~~~~)CHR$(27);"b";CHR$(3);CHR$(l7);CHR$(28); ; 65: FOR 1 Use I=1 vertical TO tab channels 3 70 LPRINT "TOP OF FORM" 80 LPRINT CHR$(27);"/&quo[...]

f-w In this program we set tabs at 10 and 20 in channel 1 in line 20. In line 30 we set tabs 15 and 25 in channel 2, and in line 40 we set tabs 17 and 28 in channel 3. Because the channels are stored, you must make the printer to recall one before you use it, so we used (ESC)“I”CHR$(nU) in line 80. CENTERING AND ALIGNING TEXT Text can be arrang[...]

CHAPTER 5 SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE PRINTER Subjects we’ll cover in Chapter 5 include- * Printer’s bell; l Master reset; l Uni-directional printing; l International character sets; l Printing BIG characters; l The optional sheet feeder; l Macro instruction; l Reading a hex dump. In the previous chapters we have learned about several groups of con[...]

62 sound the bell for a quarter of a second. This can be used to re- mind an operator to change the paper or to make another adjust- ment to the printer. You can try this by typing: LPRINT CHR$(7) n Resetting the printer Up to now when we wanted to reset the printer to the power on condition we have had to either turn the printer off and then on ag[...]

stop the printer. This will allow you to print to the end of the sheet, and even beyond if you are not careful. The codes to con- trol the paper-out detector, along with the other codes that we have just learned are in the following table. Table 5-1 Some miscellaneous commands Function 1 Control code Sound bell 1 CHRU7J 1 Master reset 1 (ESC) “a?[...]

60 LPRINT "WORK" 70 LPRINT "CANCEL LINE"; 80 LPRINT CHR$( 24); 90 LPRINT "DOES NOT WORK" Here is what this program will print: The backspace codes in line 20 move the printhead a total of three spaces to the left so that the first part of line 30 will over- print the word “NOT”. The delete codes in line 50 “erase[...]

65 You can turn immediate-print mode on with (ESC) “i” 1. But before looking at it, let’s review the normal operation of the print buffer. Enter this program. 20 A$="" : INPUT " TYPE A CHARACTER ",A$ 30 IF A$="" THEN 50 40 LPRINT A$; : GOT0 20 50 LPRINT : LPRINT CHR$(27);"@" Now type several characters,[...]

This line is added 10 spaces. This line is added 8 spaces. This line is added 6 spaces. This line is added 4 spaces. This line is added 2 spaces. This line is Normal space, This command can be used to produce micro-justification, which is a method of justifying lines by incresing the space be- tween each character. n Uni-derectional printing Uni-di[...]

67 Here is what you will get. The top line is printed bi-directional- ly, and the bottom is printed uni-directionally. You will have to look hard because there isn’t much difference. Let’s analyze the program. Line 20 sets the line spacing to 7/72 of an inch so that the characters that we print will touch top to bottom. Lines 30 - 50 print 10 v[...]

Table 5-3 Eighth bit controls Function Control code Turn the eighth bit ON (ESC) “>” Turn the eighth bit OFF (ESC) “=” ~ec~~~~;t~ bit “as is” from ( ESC > ,,#,, n Block graphics characters and special symbols Besides the upper and lower case letters and symbols that we are by now familiar with, your printer has a whole different s[...]

I :- ; ::> 69 Figure 5- 1. Character set #2[...]

70 Figure 5-l shows what this program will print. If your chart doesn’t 1001 like this because it has regular letters and numbers instead of the special symbols, then your computer is only using seven bits. You can get the correct printout by changing line 160 to this: 160 LPRINT I;CHR$(27);">";CHR$(I);CHR$(27);"="; CHR$(9)[...]

71 If you have a 7-bit interface, add the following lines to the pro- gram given above: 15 LPRINT CHR$(27);">"; 95 LPRINT CHR$(27);"=" In this program line 10 selects character set #2 so that all the graphics characters can be used (including the “club” sym- bol). Then lines 20-80 print the 5 of clubs figure. Line 90 canc[...]

72 Table 5-4 International character set commands I Countrv The characters that change are shown beneath their ASCII code in Table 5-5. Table 5-5 International character sets Country ~35~36~64~91~92~93~94~96~123~124~125~12 U.S.A I#lsl@lcllll*l’lcl:l,l~ IFrance I Germany l#l$lsl~l~lul^l’l~lal~lR al~lrl~lil~l~l~l~l~l- England f .I. G I. Demark t[...]

73 command to “normalize” the high-order control codes is (ESC) “6”. Try this program with the DIP switch 1-6 on. 10 ’ Demo of characters in the high-control code area 20 LPRINT CHR$(27);"6"; 30 FOR I=128 TO i59 40 LPRINT CHR$(I); 50 NEXT I 60 LPRINT CHR$(27);"7" 70 END When you run this program you’ll get like this:[...]

74 130 NEXT I 140 LPRINT CHR$(144);CHR$(145); 150 FOR I=149 TO 159 160 LPRINT CiSS(I); 170 NEXT I 180 LPRINT CH?.$(27);"10" 190 END When you run this program you should get like this: Table 5-6 Control code area co lmmands Function Printable code area expansion Control c (ESC)“G” . . Control code area expansion 1 (ESC>“7” C kkc[...]

I ;. ” 75 10 ' Demo of BIG characters 20 LPRINT "THIS IS I'; 30 LPRINT CHR$(27);"h";CHR$(l); 40 LPRINT "DOUBLE"; 50 LPRINT CHR$(27) ;"h";CHR$(O); 60 LPRINT " SIZED PRINTING." 70 LPRINT 80 LPRINT "THIS IS I'; 90 LPRINT CHR$(27);"h";CHR$(2); 100 LPRINT "QUAD"; 110 [...]

When you run this program, you will get like this: n The optional sheet feeder The automatic sheet feeder is a handy option that feeds single cut sheets automatically. Work done on cut sheets looks better that done on computer paper, and you don’t have to tear the “ears” off each sheet as you must with fan-fold paper. The automatic sheet feed[...]

77 which refers to an instruction that “calls,” or uses a group of nor- mal instructions. In computer programming macro-instructions (which are similar to subroutines) save programmers a lot of time and effort. Your printer’s macro can save you a lot of time and effort also. Here is how the printer’s macro works. You define macro by telling[...]

78 tional pitch, condensed print, expanded print, boldface, em- phasized, and the underlining. Line 40 cancels the superscripts and the subscripts. Line 50 sets the line spacing to l/6 inch, and line 60 sets the left-aligned printing. Then, line 70 ends the macro definition. This printer will remember this macro until the power is turned off or unt[...]

79 If your system passes the codes directly to the printer without changing them, you will get like this. (You can print out the last remaining line in the print buffer by putting the printer off line with the On Line key.) a:,,:, 01 02 I:)? 04 05 06 07 If.1 11 I:: 1.3 14 15 16 17 20 21 2” 23 24 25 26 27 70 ?I 3? 7, 34 3s 36 37 40 41 42 43 44 45 [...]

80 dumps the characters to the paper. To debug a program quickly, just use the hex dump capabili- ty. Appendix B will help you translate the hex codes to ASCII equivalents.[...]

CHAPTER 6 CREATING YOUR OWN CHARACTERS Subjects we’ll cover in Chapter 6 include - l Designing and printing your own characters; l Designing proportional characters ; l Designing your own characters with NLQ. In the previous chapters of this manual you’ve learned how to control the printer to give dozens of different typefaces. By us- ing vario[...]

see, the capital letters use the top seven wires of the printhead, and the descenders (such as the lower case “p” shown) use the bottom seven pins. As the printhead moves across the page (in either direction - that’s what is meant by bi-directional print- ing) it prints one column of dots at a time. Each time a dot is sup- posed to print an e[...]

83 character sets, and the NLQ characters. But there is another area of memory in this printer reserved for user-defzked characters. These are characters that you can design and download into the printer. When download characters are defined they are stored in RAM (random access memory), which allows you to define or modify them at any time. Each o[...]

download character. You can see how we’ve laid it out in Figure 6-5. Later in this chapter we’ll use this character to create a small graph.) E Tigure 6-4. Use this grid (or one similar to it) to define your owr m,m,m,m.m,m,m,m,m,m,,m,, 32 16 ASCII Code Descender Start column End column M, = Descender l 128 + (Start * 161 + End i 1 Total draft [...]

I . . 85 One bit in the download character definition command is to be treated as a descender or not. We’ll get to the command in due time. For now, if your character uses the top eight dots, write in a one next to the word “Descender” on the layout grid; if it uses the bottom eight dots, write in a zero. In our example, we’ll want to the b[...]

1 m m, m, m, m. m. m m, m. m m 64 32 16 4 2 1 Tolal ASCII Code WRONG! Descender Start column End column M, = Descender l 128 + (Slat1 * 16) + End i Figure 6-6. cots cannot overlap; those in immediately adjacent “half columns” will be ignored when the character is printed. W Add up each column of dots Now it’s time to give our creative side a [...]

87 So add up the values of the dots in each column using this system. In Figure 6-8 we’ve shown our grid with the sums of the columns filled in across the bottom (see if these agree with your answers!). Across the top of the grid you’ve probably noticed the cryptic labeling of each column: ml, m2, m3, etc. These labels correspond to the labels [...]

also access the character from a BASIC program with the CHR$ function. There are no rules or restrictions on the use of numbers. This means you can use whatever is most convenient for you - perhaps seldom-used keys can be replaced by more useful characters. In our example, we’ll assign the flask a value of 60, which is the code for the character [...]

I 1. : : 89 n Download character definition command You’ve read through a long explanation of download characters and we haven’t even told you the command syntax yet! Now the wait is over. This is the most complex command in your printer repertoire and now you’ve got the necessary knowledge to implement it. Here it is: (ESC)“&“CHR$(O)[...]

L 0 000 1011 = ll(decimal) Descender Starting Ending date print column print column Figure 6-10. The attribute byte-(M) for our flask character. You’ll probably recognize ml . ..mll from the top of our layout grid. That’s right, each column is described by one byte. Now we’ve got everything we need to download one character to the printer. Th[...]

I PRINTING DOWNLOAD CHARACTERS You’ve now defined and sent three characters to your printer. But how do you know that? If you try printing those characters now you don’t get a flask, car and gun. Instead you get . . ( = ). That’s because the download characters are stored in a different part of the printer’s memory. To tell it to look in do[...]

92 Nope! Just three characters in the download set. This is incon- venient for a couple of reasons. First, every time you wanted to use a download character you would have to switch back and forth between character sets. Knowing that you wouldn’t want to do that, your printer won’t even allow it. So we have made it an easy task to use mostly st[...]

93 70 NEXT M 80 NEXT N 90 LPRINT 100 DATA 139, 2, 5, 8,241, 0, 0,241, 8, 5, 2, 0 110 DATA 139,124, 0, 66, 4, 64, 36, 16, 16 12 120 DA% 139: 46: 160, 2, 60, 0, 48, 0, 130 L%NT"~H~~~27;~"D"-cHR$(ll)CHR$(0) 140 LPRINT CHR$(27)f"h";CHR$(l);' 150 LPRINT " U.S. EXPORTS" 160 LPRINT cHR$(27>;"h";c~~$(o);[...]

94 Note that we didn’t have to re-enter the download characters, since they were already sent to the printer with the first pro- gram. They will stay with the printer until you download new characters to replace them or turn the printer off. Even the (ESC) “a” command, which initializes the printer, does not destroy the contents of download R[...]

95 character width is five dots (so you could not, for instance, specify a starting column of 6 and an ending column of 8, even though those are both within the acceptable range). If you in- advertantly give an incorrect width value, however, your printer is forgiving: it will automatically revert to the default width of eleven dot columns. Just as[...]

96 Because the NLQ characters can use as many as 16 dots ver- tically and 11 dots horizontally, you plan your designs on a dif- ferent grid than the one you used for draft characters. Make up some grids (photocopy Figure 6-12 if you wish) and get ready to be creative! 128 128 84 64 32 32 16 16 8 8 4 4 2 2 1 1 TOtd 1st 2nd ASCII Code: Descender: Sta[...]

97 ASCII Code: ($0 Descender: 2. Start column: End column: MO = Descender* 128 + (Start * 16 ) + End Figure 6- 13. Add the values of the dots in each box and line col- umn and write the sum of each column at the bottom. Now enter the following program and run it. It has the data numbers for the NLQ flask character. For a character of your own, chan[...]

140 DATA 139, 46, 16, 2, 60, 0, 48, 0, 48, o, 48, o 150 DATA 92, 32, 4, 60, 0, 48, 0, 48, 0, 48, 0 When you want to print the defined character, you must select the NLQ mode first, then select the download characters. If you don’t select the NLQ mode, the download characters are not printed even you selected the download character set. To demonst[...]

99 240 LPRINT CHR$(61); 250 NEXT I 260 LPRINT 270 LPRINT "CHEMICALS";CHR$(g); 280 FOR I=.4 TO 8.7 STEP .4 290 LPRINT CHR$(60) 300 NEXT I 310 LPRINT 320 LPRINT "GUNS";CHR$(g); 330 FOR I=.4 TO 1.4 STEP .4 340 LPRINT CHR$(62); 350 NEXT I 360 LPRINT 370 LPRINT CHR$(g);"+--"; 380 SCALE$=~--+--~~ 390 FOR I=2 TO 8 STEP 2 400 [...]

100 MEMO - -[...]

CHAPTER 7 DOT GRAPHICS Subjects we’ll cover in Chapter 7 include- . This printer’s bit image graphics capabilities; l Printing a pre-defined shape; l Plotting a calcurated shape; l High-resolution graphics. In Chapter 6 you were introduced to a form of computer graphics; you were able to actually define characters dot by dot. In this chapter yo[...]

So when do you use graphics and when do you use download characters? Practically anything you can do with graphics you can do with download characters, and vice versa. A clever pro- grammer could actually plot a mathematical curve using download characters or use strings of graphics data as user- defined characters. But why do it the hard way? Ther[...]

largest number we can send in one byte (that’s what the BASIC CHR$( ) function sends: one byte) is 255. And with the normal density graphics it’s possible to have a graphics image as wide as 480 dots. So to figure out how many columns of graphics data to expect, your printer multiplies n2 by 256 and adds the value of nl to the product. If you d[...]

1 J Figure 7- 1. Starting with the most significant bit at the top, each pin of the print head is assigned a value which is a power of two. A short program should demonstrate how to implement the graphics command. The program below gave us this printout: __----._._ -- ______._ --. ___““““--....” _-_, 10 i Demo of dot graphics 20 PI=3.1415[...]

105 mathematical function (a sine wave) to create a design. Later in this chapter we’ll show something more complex. The mathematical concepts (such as sine and pi) demonstrated here are not important; you don’t have to be a math whiz to use this printer’s graphics. n Combining text and graphics It’s also possible to mix text and graphics i[...]

106 PRINTING A DESIGN OR LOGO Since you control the firing of every pin, you can print nearly anything with your printer that can draw (and probably better, if you’re like most computer users!). You can be used for creating “computer art” or drawing maps. Or, as we’ll show you here, you can use dot graphics to print your logo at the top of [...]

107 In the program below, we’ve taken the logo graphics informa- tion and put it into BASIC DATA statements. The program itself is short and simple. The loop starting at line 100 reads the data statements into a string array variable called LOGO$. In line 170 we change the line spacing to 8/72 inch so that the lines of graphics data will connect [...]

340 ' Row 2 350 DATA 0, 60,255,255,255,255,255,143, 15 360 DATA 370 DATA 400 410 DATA 31, 31, 15, 7, 3, o, o, o, ;, ; DATA 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, c, 420 DATA 0, 0, 60,255,255,255,255,255,143: 15 430 440 DATA 24;;24;: 7, 7, 3, 3, 3,131,193,241 DATA 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 450 ' Row 3 460 DATA 0, 31, 31, 3,12g,128,1g2,192,1g2,lg2 470 DATA 192,[...]

109 20 LINE.8$=CHR$(27)+CHR$(65)+CHR$(8)+CHR$(27)+ CHR$(5Oj 40 LINE.l2$=CHR$(27>+CHR$(65)+CHR$(l2)tCHR$(27)t CHEI$(50) PLOTTING WITH YOUR PRINTER This section of the manual gets into more serious BASIC pro- gramming just because it’s required in order to have the com- puter act as a plotter driver. Don’t be intimidated; while it’s beyond t[...]

80 LX=~O : LY=20 90 LXFAC=72/LX : LYFAC=~'~'/LY 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 240 250 260 270 280 290 300 310 320 it: ;zi 2: 410 420 430 440 450 460 .470 480 600 610 620 630 640 650 1 Plot curve GOSUB 600 1 1 Send bit image map to printer LPRINT CHR$(27);"A";CHR$(6); FOR ROW%=0 TO MAXROW% A$=""[...]

660 RANG=ANG%*6 28/360 670 X2=RAD"COS(iANG)tlO : Y2=RADSSIN(RANG)tlO 680 GOSUB 250 690 NEXT ANG% 700 RETURN If you are using with the IBM mode (DIP switch 1-6 off), change the following lines to the program given above. 140 LPRINT CHR$(27>;"A";CHR$(6);CHR$(27);"2" 230 LPRINT CHR$(27);"A";CHR$(l2);CHR$(27);"[...]

112 to calculate starting and ending points for a line (in our circle the “lines” are very short - sometimes the starting and ending points are the same). The coordinates of the starting point of the line are assigned to variables Xl and Y 1. The line ends at point X2, Y2. When these coordinates have been calculated, a subroutine call is made t[...]

I 113 600 ’ 610 ) Subroutine to plot a sine wave 620 ) 630 x1=0 : Yl=lo : x2=20 : Y2=10 640 GOSUB 250 650 x1=10 : Y~=O : x2=10 : Y2=20 650 GOSUB 250 670 X1=0 : Yl=lO 680 FOR X2=0 TO 20 STEP .2 6go Y2=lO-g"SIN(3.ltil59~X2/10) 700 GOSUB 250 710 NEXT X2 720 RETURN HIGH RESOLUTION GRAPHICS Up until now all of the dot graphics printing we have do[...]

114 Table 7-2 Dot graphics commands Function Normal densitv (60 dots/inch) 1 (ESC)“*“CI I Control code HR$(O) nl n2 ml m2 . . . Double densit; (120 dotdinch~ _-_ --_- ._.. -.., 1 ( :ESC)“*“CfiR$(l) nl n2 ml m2 Doubledensity.---.--. ~_~~~ , j ,/double weed 1 (ESC )“*“CHR$(2) nl n2 ml m2 “*“CHR$(3) nl n2 ml m2 . . . HR$(4) nl n2 ml m[...]

I. Double density graphics Double density/double speed , 115[...]

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So if quadruple density looks so great, why not use it all the time? Let’s try an experiment on your printer which will show just how the different modes work. Using the first program in this chapter, change line 50 to try each of the different modes. Just change the “0” to “l”, “2”, “3”, etc. in turn. Your printouts should look s[...]

119 - puting time as double density, it prints at the same speed as nor- mal density graphics. Amazing, you say? Well, it is - until you know the secret. Every other column of dots is ignored, so the output is actually the same as normal density graphics. The ad- vantage is that you can write and debug your programs at dou- ble speed, then change t[...]

120 , graphics densities. These commands, which are shown in Table 7-3, can be used interchangeably with the corresponding (ESC) “*” command. Like the commands you are already familiar with, these new commands are followed by two bytes to specify the number of graphics data bytes to print and then the data. MORE GRAPHICS PROGRAMMING 1 IPS At th[...]

121 n g-pin graphics mode In the early part of this chapter, we said that the bottom pin of the print head is not normally used in the graphics modes. That’s because most computers communicate with parallel-type peripheral devices using eight data lines. When the peripheral is a printer, each data line corresponds to one pin on the print head. Th[...]

122 MEMO[...]