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Epson FX-100 User's Manual

1. r3 HR 27 8 END 0 DATA 0 15 16 0 32 31 64 0 64 0 64 0 DATA 64 4 72 2 32 2 24 4 0 0 0 0 DATA 0 120 4 0 2 124 1 0 1 0 1 300 DATA 1 64 0 124 2 68 8 120 0 64 0 Figure 16 3 Program for giant G When you RUN it you should see line 100 s prompt ENTER A STRING You can respond with any string of letters but for now type GO with 220 no space after the 0 and then press RETURN The next prompt on the screen is ENTER A MASTER PRINT MODE NUMBER For now enter a 24 Remember all codes from 0 to 255 produce a combination of print modes but there are only 16 unique combina tions You may want to refer to Figure 5 2 for the other possibilities 385 Figure 16 4 Giant G The four characters defined in lines 270 to 300 combine to print a giant G The O is printed as four small characters Figure 16 4 illustrates the way the program arranges the four versions of each character to make a larger letter Line 140 examines the A string character by character and deter mines its ASCII value Line 150 prints what s now stored in the loca tions for the Roman upper and lowercase versions of each character on the first pass of the print head On the second pass Y is set to 1 and 128is added to A in line 140 Thus line 150 then prints what has replaced the Italic versions of the character get a better idea of what this program can do you ll need to ad
2. Summary Varieties of Graphics Density Graphics Programming Tips Graphics and the Reset Code Graphics and low ASCII codes Density Varieties High Speed DoubleDensity Graphics Mode Low Speed Double Density Graphics Mode Quadruple Density Graphics Mode Moredensities More Graphics Programming TIPS 23294 RR E Reassigning alternate graphics codes Nine Pin Graphics Mode Pin Combination Patterns Repeated patterns Repeated DATA numbers Summary 141 142 Pun ram ram a NJ SSS m mm Un mm Ul N mm Un BA mn Un mn Un 12 Design Your Own Graphics Planning Process SIRATA Program a Ka aT LORS CRT aaa CRT LRL Three Dimensional Program First version of 3D program Other versions n nn nn n 66 ee n n n ee 13 14 15 Summary Plotter Graphics Arrays DIMension and arrays e 6 Filling esee nn Cirde Plotting Ones become dots firing SEQUENCES eee Code solutions 12sec eee n nn KI Higher resolution Reflections s
3. Expanded anini Multiple print pitches on one SUMMATY 4 Print Quality Bold Modes DoubleStrikeMode Emphasized Mode Proportional Mode Mixing Modes SUMMA sinsir atiati arki aiar mA kataon 5 Dress Up Modes and Master Select FourModes Underline Mode Script Modes Super and Sub Italic More Mode Combinations Master Master Select combinations Viii Special Printing Features 2 2 o elei re px chu Overstrikes OT SES tena ete ens Unidirectional Mode International Characters Special Speeds Half SpeegMode Immediate Print Mode FX 80 only Summary Line Spacing and Line Feeds Line Spacing Preset
4. 27 and other CHR commands As more features are added to the printer even the extended range of codes 0 255 is inadequate if only single code CHR instructions can be used Because of this Epson has designed the FX printer s logic to understand special sequences of control codes the ESCape code sequences Y ou use these code sequences to select one or more printing features or modes Such modes as Italic Mode and Expanded Mode affect the way the characters look Other modes affect spacing and therefore the format ting of your pages Appendix C which is reprinted on the Quick Ref erence Card collects the modes into categories for quick reference Each ESCape code sequence consists of the ESCape code which is CHR3 27 plus one or more of the FX s other CHR control codes 42 Here are two examples of ESCape code sequences LPRINT 27 CHRS 71 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS 38 0 1 CHR 3 To see how such sequences work start a new program now by entering 10 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS 52 20 LPRINT ITALIC CHARACTER SET and RUNning it When you can RUN a program we show you the results that you should expect ITALIC CHARACTER SET Note If you haven t yet read the Preface which includes Conven tions Used in This Manual this is the time to do it Especially important now are the passages on semicolons and on saving programs The FX interprets the CHR 27 CHR 52
5. is H 5 lt 00 05 1 lt c ny lt 0 9 MM oM bd o c c 1 oc o SOON HAHAAH o ur oO 41 00 eM 4 1 C E Kis wo n e 0 OO EI an AO NR 4440 x apt NN CY c 4 CN CN n pud es v em v4 SN c wo Ur Ur xoa COICO 00 x x00 COUCO CO xu v lt lt lt lt lt ur ORE T eo OC C C s SNN NN sa Jo c eO a Cocos o Ort x H ON ZU eo O E Ana gt lt pcc Fd zB BON LOO POCO CN Fu Eu Eg n LN 4 un qa ON 40 4 4 MIO cO ox eo x we 25 Bt J o t cit lt gt c NOM onl M lt CO CN lt WOOO GY gt lt lt E P a E
6. 0 0 0 0 0 11 12 3 14 15 16 19 1995 220 LPRINT H H B a 34 A j GOSUB 800 LPRINT 10 FOR J 1 TO 3 FOR K 1 TO 3 20 READ MAX 30 NEXT K 40 DATA 12 18 23 28 36 34 28 27 30 50 BS CHR 27 E 60 DS CHR 27 J CHRS 11 70 DATA 2 1 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 80 DATA 127 0 99 0 65 0 65 0 90 DATA 127 0 28 0 62 65 62 0 28 0 127 100 LPRINT CHR 27 10 27 01 0 LPRINT CHR 27 CHRS 0 0 0 0 LPRINT 27 CHRS 1 CHR 0 130 LPRINT 27 amp WRS 0 94 107 0 FOR Y 1 TO 14 LPRINT 139 0 FOR X 1 TO 11 READ C LPRINT CHR C NEXT X 0 NEXT Y LPRINT 27 33 0 LPRINT CHR 27 D CHR 14 19 CHR 24 CHR 34 CHRS 44 54 200 LPRINT 60 1 210 LPRINT ABC CO SALES FIRST QUARTER LPRINT HS HS k HS HSjHS HS k FOR R 39 TO 1 STEP 1 LPRINT H F 0 IF R 10 INT R 10 THEN LPRINT R 1 LPRINT B H g D C J NEXT J CS CHR 27 64 32 99 0 127 HS CHRS 137 2 1 LPRINT LPRINT p Figure 17 2 Program for BARCHART 270 FOR M 1 TO 3 LPRINT HS 280 FOR P 1 TO 3 290 IF R gt MAX M P THEN LPRINT ELSE LPRINT CHRS 93 P p 300 NEXT P NEXT M LPRINT B H k C IF F 0 THEN LPRINT GOTO 320 310 LPRINT H CHRS 9342 W DISTRICT VU 2 7
7. eens Line Graphics SUMMA iasa nex Rn eve A A 17 Business Application Preparation Barchart Statement Form 999 REM The End xii List of Figures Easy 1 ticket program Easy 2 Ticket to success l1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9 1 10 1 11 1 12 1 13 1 14 1 15 1 16 1 17 1 18 1 19 1 20 1 21 1 22 2 1 3 1 3 2 3 3 3 4 35 3 6 3 7 4 1 4 2 4 3 The FX 80 and FX 100 printers Printer parts 22cm rnm hk En Paper separator Protective lids Tractor covers Manual feed knob DIP switch vent DIP switch locatio DIP switch factory setti ngs seem Ribbon insertion Printer readied for paper insertion Pin feeder adjustment RON RUN Loading the FX 80 Tractor unit release Tractor unit installation Hook and stud Adjusting the pin feeders Top of form gt Paper thickness Cable connection Sample automatic Italic listing ee cee Dot matrix The print head
8. 137 LPRINT E 1 ES D CHR 26 CHRS 1 LPRINT ES CHR 0 CHRS 0 CHRS LPRINT 1 0 LPRINT ES amp CHRS 0 0 FOR 1 TO 11 LPRINT 11 FOR X 1 TO 11 READ D LPRINT G KQ D NEXT X NEXT Y LPRINT ES U1 FOR 1 TO LPRINT CHR 95 NEXT X LPRINT ES A CHRS 6 00 LPRINT gp 9 5 1 0 LPRINT FOR X 1 TO 25 LPRINT NEXT X LPRINT HS yo 120 LPRINT 7 H 9 Figure Easy 1 FX ticket program 130 LPRINT 7 E E 4 Eg 1 140 LPRINT TICKET SUCCESS ES ES 5 ES 0 150 LPRINT HS 9 FOR X 1 TO 2 LPRINT 7 H 9 NEXT X 160 LPRINT 7 LPRINT CHRS 14 ES E Wu 2 170 LPRINT CHR 20 E F E S1 SERIES E T H H 9 180 LPRINT 4 LPRINT CHR 14 E E Wi 2 190 LPRINT 20 ES F ES S1 PRINTERS ES T H 5 200 LPRINI 6 5 HSS Be LRRINE T7 z LH zT 9 210 LPRINT 7 15 EPSON AMERICA 220 LPRINT 9 50 ES B INC ES T 9 230 LPRINT 7 H 9 LPRINT 7 ES 0 240 LPRINT GENERAL ADMISSION ES H 9 LPRINT 7 H 9 250 LPRINT FOR 1 25 LPRINT NEXT X LPRINT H 260 L RIN T gs 1 270 FOR X 1 LPRINT CHR 95 NEXT X LPRINT 280
9. Figure 16 6 Games seem same When characters are printed side by side in any mode that com presses the matrix columns gaps appear at the intermediate column 222 positions That indudes Elite and Compressed Modes For a compari son of the three print pitches RUN the program three more times and enter MESSAGES 4 MESSAGES 4 MESSAGES 52 HESS HERSAGES MESSAGES Figure 16 7 Messages in three pitches All three mode combinations include Double Strike and Expanded print the only difference between them is the pitch The first pitch is Pica the second is Elite the third is Compressed Despite this limitation you should have a good time adding the rest of the alphabet or defining your own character set By the way the Introduction at the beginning of this manual shows a few more of these Double Wide and Double High letters You may want to SAVE the current program before proceeding Core Sets Combining user defined characters is a great way to create fre quently used logos or fancy headings But as you saw defining an entire alphabet of oversized letters uses up ASCII codes rather quickly Fortunately there is an alternative In some cases you may be able to define a handful of core characters that can be combined to make any letter in the alphabet This requires a bit of imagination we present an example here to lubricate those creative gears Prepare for the program changes b
10. SUPER SUB SUPER SCRIPT SCRIPT SUPER SCRIPT SUP SCRIPT ITALICS ITALICS ITALICS PICA SUPER SUB UNDER SCRIPT UNDER SCRIPT UNDER UNDER UNDER UNDER PRINT SCRIPT SCRIPT ITALICS LINE ITALICS LINE ITALICS LINE LINE LINE LINE GINGLE STRIKE PICA ABCD seen sasae ABCD ABCD eevee suuna suasa soree ABCD sesos sesse SINGLE STRIKE ELITE ABCDE eves seere ABCDE ABCDE sere ne vieoe nn ABCDE tree seres SINSLE STRIKE COMPRESSED ABCDEFG sisan ABCDEFG ABCDEFG esre sasaa titm ABCDEFG 44 SINGLE STRIKE EMP PICA ABCD ABCD ABCD vasvos ABCD woven DOUBLE STRIKE PICA ABCD aco ABCD ABCD 486P ABCD 2505 appo ABCD 79 ancy DOUBLE STRIKE ELITE ABCDE amene ABCDE ABCDE 8 lt 26 ABCDE ancom ABCDE DOUBLE STRIKE COMPRESSED ABCDEFG mcomro ABCDEFG ABCDEFG ancore scorre ABCDEFG eM ABCD 9 asco ABCD ABCD APCD ABCD 499 Anco SINBLE STRIKE 5 EXPANDED PICA KAES ec reres 242 PAER eee eee serve veena AUER en SINGLE STRIKE EXPANDED ELITE osse S aie ifs RESA SINGLE STRIKE EXPANDED COMPRESSED ABC 5 see cosas ABC on orn SINGLE STRIKE EMPHASIZED PICA AB AB AER 2454 nnn cnn e nne EXPANDED PICK AB a AB AB CP ar am CT Ge ct c ae ae AB OP oe EIPANDE
11. DIP switch skip You may find that you want the skip over perforation feature to become a default feature on your printer Nothing could be easier Turn the printer off so that your new setting will take effect when you turn the FX on again Now remove the vent covering the DIP switches as described in Chapter 1 and change DIP switch 2 3 to the on position Set a new top of form as described above Now replace the vent and turn the printer on Then delete line 10 and put in this new line 30 30 LPRINT AUTO SKIP COMING UP LINE X Except for the positioning of the blank lines and the wording of the text this printout should match Figure 8 4 An automatic six line skip over perforation will now be active every time you turn the printer on And you can still turn it off with the CHR 27 O or change the setting with CHR 27 N CHR n If you don t want to keep the skip over perforation feature active reset switch 2 3 and your top of form before proceeding Single Sheet Adjustment For instructions on loading single sheets of paper into the friction feeder refer back to Chapter 1 109 If you use single shee paper on your FX printer and run to the end of the form the paper out sensor prevents the printer from acdden tally printing on the platen The sensor automatically sounds the beeper and shuts down the printing until you load another sheet and continue While the sensor saves wear of print head ribbon and pl
12. 1 IC UNDERLINE BUPERECRIPT ITALIC UNDERLINE 1 2 4 3 amp 7 8 9 1 1 1 Figure 5 3 Dress up combinations Master Select base and then add the sequence s that you want to embellish it Here is a program that does just that several times NEW 10 4 GOSUB 70 LPRINT 27 51 27 T 20 17 GOSUB 70 LPRINT CHR 27 1PRINTERS 30Nz8 GOSUB 70 LPRINT CHR 27 OHAVE EVER 40 N 49 GOSUB 70 LPRINT EXPANDING 50 N 56 GOSUB 70 LPRINT CHR 27 A4POSSIBLITIES 60LPRINT CHR 27 Q END 70 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS N RETURN THE FX HAVE EVER EXPANDING POSSIBILITIES Notice that we ve stored the Master Select sequence as a subroutine in line 70 to save typing As we ve called up the subroutine and given it a new number we ve three times added the ESCape codes for Sub script line 10 Underline line 20 and Italic line 50 Modes The Reset in line 60 returns the printer to its defaults To aid you in quickly finding your way around in this forest of possibilities we offer Table 5 2 77 8Z 3 94 Ut Jop 5 V xipuaddy K1eurung So 1s Juud uuoj o3 pue 10j jo 1ejseJA ui asay ueo sapoo ades sapoyy LI pue adog p s
13. 211 12345678SOFTWARE If you find yourself defining characters in small groups the same tech nique can be used to store part of the CHR 27 amp command ZS CHRS 27 amp CHRS 0 Z can be used to define each new string of characters with a simple command such as either of these LPRINT Z AZ LPRINT ZSCHRS 128 CHRS 159 STRATA Your current program uses eight user defined characters which will be used again in a later chapter For now delete lines 80 90 and 165 and change line 180 180 LPRINT 147646 12345678 STRATA SOFTWARE Save the current program as STRATA Summary CHR 27 amp n CHRS n CHRS n Defines characters where n selects the RAM buffer 0 nis the starting character and n is the ending character For each character in the CHR 27 amp sequence from n to n the printer expects 12 data numbers The first number called the attribute byte determines the height and width characteristics of the character at print time The other 11 numbers determine the pin patterns used to print the character CHR 27 96 CH R n CH R n Activates a given character set where n indi cates ROM 0 or RAM 1 njsO 212 CHR 27 CHR n CHR n CHR n CHR 27 6 CHR 27 7 CHR 27 11 CHR 27 10 Downloads ROM characters into RAM All three numbers are 0 Enables printing of codes 128 to 159 and 255 Disables printing of c
14. 4 8 A G WU U K e 1 i p gt DENMARK os SWEDEN oU A A 0 8 ITALY e gt lt m i SPAIN Rot M 1 UE gt This program provides an easy reference to the international ters you ll probably want to keep the printout handy You can also print international characters in Italic Mode Change these two lines 80 READ CS LPRINT CSCHRS 137 14 27 4 100 NEXT X LPRINT 27 5 NEXT Y to ge the result shown in Table 6 3 Table 6 3 International characters in Italic typeface 94 96 123 124 125 126 4 t P Tr 5 e e a Le 4 CA 5 USA FRANCE GERMANY DENMARK SWEDEN I TAL Y SFAIM JAPAN ee THR HH wo w R Heme Ge awn D I 87 When could you use this program Well you can print in italiano en francais in English a auf deutsch 4 PA Svenska paa dansk espanol and if you want to use one of the foreign sets all the time you can change your printer s default The factory setting of a default international character set for the USA is shown in line 1 of Table 6 4 You can change this by resetting some of the FX s DIP switches Three switches Sw
15. ITALICS 1234567896 ABCDEFGHIJK Programmer s Easy Lesson Before you start note that we haven t daimed that one easy lesson will make you an FX maestro It takes more than one lesson to learn the full value of the feature packed FX printer In fact the more time you spend with this manual the more your printer will cooperate with your every command But some of you want to see something from a new printer right now no matter what The next few pages are especially for you If you get stuck the proper set up procedures are covered in full in Chapter 1 First Steps 1 Make all connections with the power OFF Connect your FX to your computer via the printer cable that you purchased separately Some computers require special printer interface boards also pur chased separately 2 To use continuous feed printer paper with pin feed holes set the friction control lever and the paper bail toward the front of the printer If you are using the FX 80 pull the paper under the plastic separator and through the paper path If you are using the FX 100 you may need to first install the tractor unit then pull the paper under it In case the paper starts to jam on either model refer to Chapter 1 for tips on inserting paper As you straighten the paper you will probably need to adjust the pin feeders To use either a single sheet of paper or roll paper without pin feed holes on the FX 80 first move the pin feeders out of the way If a tr
16. az 2LL 16 0 255 FRO immediate o 0 216 CHRSQTY j CHRS n je qj 12 15 n 0 255 FX 80 only immediate 102 Chapter 8 Forms Control The FX has several features that make it easy for you to print on any size of page and to determine where on the page the printing will appear Because they are needed most often for creating forms or for printing on pre printed forms these features are called forms control With the FX you can easily change the length of a page the margin settings and the horizontal and vertical tabs In this chapter and the next two you will learn about these forms control features This chapter covers the way you control form feeding which is the movement of the paper from one paging unit to the next You can control the distance the paper moves the positioning of the print head at the top of each page and the printer s response to your use of single sheets of paper Form Length Control The FX s default form feed is 66 lines which in the default 12 dot line spacing equals the length of a standard form 11 inches When you want to use a different size of paper you can change the length of a form feed The next three subsections cover these factors of form feeding Form feed distance When the printer is not on line using the FF button on the top of the printer feeds the paper to the top of the next form If you want to advance the paper durin
17. AS CHRS 95 N 21 GOSUB 800 LPRINT LPRINT 27 S1 ppp AMouNT REMITTED LPRINT CHRS 27 D CHRS 3 13 CHRS 29 CHRS 46 CHRS 55 CHRS 68 CHR 1 310 LPRINT CHRS 11 27 50 DETACH AND RETURN WITH YOUR PAYMENT LPRINT CHR 27 T N 80 AS GOSUB 800 LPRINT I FT 0 GOSUB 500 LPRINT D CHRS 8 CHRS 26 CHRS 38 CHR ARS 1 C 5 2 GOSUB 500 LPRINT LPRINT CHRS 8 CHRS 57 CHRS 0 LPRINT CHRS 27 T HS mpsrpr mnopqrst H LPRINT CHRS 27 1 CHRS 27 4 YOU LPRINT CHRS 27 Q END Figure 17 4 Program for STATEMENT 970 980 990 1000 pata 0 0 0 0 127 0 0 0 0 0 BOX SUBROUTINE FOR 1 TO 5 READ L K M K NS K RS K NEXT K FOR 1 TO C READ W K NEXT K FOR L 1 TO 5 IF L 4 THEN FOR G 1 TO H IF FT 1 THEN LPRI NT H LPRINT L L FOR K 1 FOR 1 TO W K LPRINT N L NE N W C A M L IF L lt gt 2 THEN 640 XT K GOSUB TO C 1 LPRINT M L NEXT J 800 LPRINT R LPRINT CHRS 27 H CHRS 27 A CHRS 0 FOR 0 1 TO C READ T LPRINT 5 5 LPRINT CHR 27 IF F 1 THEN LPRINT 27 A CHRS 0 AS l GOSUB 800 IF L 5 THEN LPRINT CHR 27 1 IF L 4 THEN NEXT EXT L RETURN DRAW LOGO
18. Line 210 prints the second and third lines of the logo Lines 220 250 print more of the logo and the address in various mode combinations Line 260 sets new horizontal tab stops Line 270 sets some variables for the box subroutine at 500 That rou tine prints the box in the upper right comer of the sheet Line 280 does a vertical tab then prints a string of 21 underline charac ters ASCII 95 via subroutine 800 Line 290 prints the Subscript AMOUNT REMITTED Line 300 sets new horizontal tab stops Line 310 tabs vertically twice then prints a Superscript message Line 320 cancels Scripts and prints 80 hyphens with subroutine 800 Line 330 calls the box routine Line 340 sets new horizontal tabs Line 350 calls the box routine Line 360 ses new horizontal tabs Line 370 prints STRATA SOFTWARE in a different print mode Line 380 thanks us in Italic characters Line 390 resets all modes and ends the program 237 Deciphering the box routine in lines 500 through 660 is left as an exercise for you The following hints will get you started The subroutine at 500 is used to create three boxes of different sizes and characteristics using the line graphics characters The data stored in lines 1300 to 1370 determine which line graphics characters are used to print the boxes the width of each cell and the headings The variables sent to the subroutine are C the number of cells H the height of the cells F a flag for shading
19. p O CO CO C CO CO MA ae ai CN xr cO t ART COR ois 5 ur ur ur WH LO 0 00 LN P LO Os OC LO s C o C C OG ur Ww SM LC 4 sa SNNN NN N Tom OO m CASCO CI MOL a Oot Om CD pa E O OO CN CN 07 69 CO co co pe O o ooo M n wo C Lose CO C CO CO CO CO CO c r R LE Vu H our Ur Q EA t Cd ed ed kB ed ed kd ed ed ed e ge e e C EA gt lt EA EA EA Ed EA Ed E 5 MOOM a ec c lt gt lt gt OO CO CO OO C Co lt gt OO C coco cococococo co c dN xr LO OO r LO OO Co c ON sr a 4 4 ed C CN CN OS 169 Figure 12 7 FX 100 figure 7 WIDTH LPRINT 255 10 LPRINT CHR 27 1 20 GS CHRS 27 L CHRS 121 CHRS 30 1 17 PRINT ROW y D 40 LPRINT G 50READ L H 60 L L 7 H H 7
20. 163 164 99900000000090000000000000000900009000000000000000000000000000900000000000000 000000000000000000000 o4 0990000000000000000000000000000000000000000009 e 9990000000000000000000 o4 9099000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 6000000000000000000000 e e 0000000000000000000000 high high high 2 9 low tow low p e low low 0000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000 09900000000000000000000 _ o 0909900000000000000000000000000000 e e 0000000000000000000000 o 00099000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 e Figure 72 4 Corner of the FX 80 design A very few pin patterns are needed for this program In fact each pattern consists of only one pin making the numbers easy to calculate 1 for the low pin 64 for the high pin 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 for the diagonal rise 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 for the diagonal fall As you will see in the next few pages these pin patterns are coded right into the program You ll only need to store as data the number of repetitions for the low and high sections A close look at Figure 12 4 reveals that most of the lines can be produced by repeating a d step pattern 1 Firethe b
21. 5 and 7 with the respective exponential values of 1 4 16 and 64 in the first column and pins 2 4 and 6 exponential values 2 8 32 in the second And it alternates that sequence for 50 columns 50 columns in Single Density This program also mixes graphics and text on one line It does that by using semicolons to keep both kinds of output on the same print line High Speed Double D ensity Graphics M ode Now let s print the same pattern in twice the normal Single den sity Change the first 0 inline 20 to a2 and retype the text inline 50 as shown beow 20 AS CHRS 27 CHRS 2 50 CHRS 0 5OLPRINT 1 HIGH SPEED DOUBLE DENSITY GRAPHICS If your computer system requires a WIDTH statement to prevent the printer from issuing a carriage return before the graphics line is com plete add it now 7 WIDTH LPRINT 255 The format for this statement may be different for your BASIC see your software documentation HIGH SPEED DOUBLE DENSITY GRAPHICS The program still prints 50 columns of dots but now it presses them together and prints them in half the space They print at the same speed as in Single Density Graphics This High Speed Double Density Graphics Mode has one draw back Because the dots are so dosely packed two dots in the same row cannot appear in two consecutive columns In the above program we avoided the problem by never calling up one dot twice in succession If you
22. 70 IF L 0 THEN 9 80 FOR 1 TO L LPRINT CHR 1 90 IF H 0 THEN LPRINT GOTO 140 0 3 GOSUB 160 NEXT X 100 LPRINT 1 2 CHRS b CHRS 8 CHRS 16 CHR 32 CHR 64 110 FOR X 1 TO H LPRINT CHR 64 NEXT X 120 LPRINT CHRS 64 CHRS 32 CHRS 16 CHR 8 CHRS 4 CHRS 2 CHR 1 130 GOTO 50 140 NEXT D GOSUB 160 150 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END 160 FOR X 1 TO 3 LPRINT G 170 FOR 1 TO 889 LPRINT CHR 1 NEXT Y 180 LPRINT NEXT X RETURN 190 DATA 3 20 2 3 12 3 21 3 6 14 8 14 6 1 200 DATA 3 20 3 3 10 3 22 3 4 18 4 18 4 1 210 DATA 3 20 4 3 8 3 23 3 3 5 8 5 2 5 8 5 3 1 220 DATA 3 3 22 3 6 3 24 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 230 DATA 3 3 23 3 4 3 25 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 240 DATA 3 3 24 3 2 3 26 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 250 DATA 3 3 25 3 0 3 27 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 2 60 DATA 3 20 9 6 5 15 6 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 270 DATA 3 20 10 4 6 15 6 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 280 DATA 3 20 9 6 5 15 6 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 290 DATA 3 3 25 3 0 3 27 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 300 DATA 3 3 24 3 2 3 26 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 310 DATA 3 3 23 3 4 3 25 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 320 DATA 3 3 22 3 6 3 24 3 3 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 330 DATA 3 3 21 3 8 3 23 3 5 8 5 2 5 8 5 3 340 DATA 3 3 20 3 10 3 22 3 4 18 4 18 4 1 350 DATA 3 3 19 3 12 3 21 3 6 14 8 14 6 1 Figure 12 8 Program for FX 100 figure Other versions Now that you ve typed in all that data it s time to have s
23. Exploding galaxy Big Dat Summary Symmetrical Graphics Patterns nnn Pin Pattern Calculation Graphics Width Settings bad eM EA ad ea Rl de eke Pattern Printout n n n KK Variations Summary User Defined Characters nnn sex NER ERE Character Design Definition eR RR eee ed Be ees Dots into DATA Attribute byte ee ee eee Proportional print O Printing User Defined Downloading Command Defining More Characters Redefining Control Codes Mode 4 45 STRATA Summary BBRA 58916 8 mm ce m EIE HO m N Hye EE mn Co e elele rem E m Co ite m UJ m ren BEE JBE NININ WIN Te N N N H N xi 16 Combining User Defined Characters Large Letters Double Wide Large Letters Double High Giant Letters Double High and Double Wide Core Sets
24. P Figure 14 4 Symmetric pattern 1 That s enough to knock your eyes right out of their sockets And all that from a single one dimensional array Variations The computer completely controls your symmetric pattern dot for dot Small changes in the program can affect the pattern in a big way For exampl e try this simple change in line 300 0 TO 0 300 FOR K And RUN the program again or in Figure 14 5 that each string of ones and zeros in the array prints only once The K loop in line 300 controls Notice in your printout the repetitions of these strings 195 H e SR a ot a m dem mr mare m U 1 1 55 t E hu 4 aM a 55 poa a ma m Arg m tees Mr SO mg m p n n a niu rj a BS B ge T aa 21 vis E a m AT B su Titan 1 f Ur Ld Figure 14 5 Symmetric pattern 2 Here s another interesting variation 20 MAX 64 MIN 1 RE 1 N 1 2 40 N N 2 70 NzN 2 Figure 14 6 Symmetric pattern 3 Quite a difference Instead of adding and subtracting one from N lines 40 and 70 now double and halve it This geometric progression creates a very different pattern 196 Also notice that because the variable RE is set to
25. READ P R FOR 1 CHRS R NEXT J GOTO 71 RETURN STRINGS ROUTI G LPRINT 27 L CHRS 60 CHRS 0 READ N IF N 128 THEN 770 IF N gt 0 THEN LPRINT CHRS N GOTO 710 NE FOR 2 1 TO LPRINT A lt lt lt LINE GRAPHICS AND SHADING gt gt gt DATA 0 0 0 0 15 0 8 0 8 0 8 a DATA 8 0 8 0 0 8 8 8 8 0 8 TO N LPRINT CHRS P NEXT J RETURN b lt d e 4 g n k 1010 DATA Sota seo as 1099 lt lt lt STRATA SOFTWARE gt gt gt Figure 17 4 L NEXT 0 N 80 Program STATEMENT continued 235 236 DATA 0 121 0 73 0 73 0 73 0 79 0 111 T 0 127 0 65 0 65 0 65 0 127 0 112 TA 0 63 64 8 64 8 64 28 64 32 113 0 32 64 0 64 63 64 0 64 32 114 0 126 1 2 4 8 4 2 1 126 0 115 0 7 8 16 36 64 36 16 8 7 0 116 TA 0 127 0 72 0 72 0 76 2 121 0 117 0 62 65 8 65 8 65 28 65 34 0 119 lt lt lt LOGO DATA gt gt gt 0 1 2 4 11 18 36 72 16 16 64 8 8 32 16 0 7 0 0 128 1210 DATA 0 126 1 0 126 1 5 0 0 1 2 4 11 18 36 16 8 32 4 32 4 16 8 0 128 1220 DATA 0 0 0 64 32 16 12 36 3 16 4 34 65 0 0 65 34 8 16 4 18 11 4 2 1 0 9 0 0 128 1230 DATA 8 0 0 64 32 16 72 36 16 7 4 16 36 67 0 0 1 66 36 4 16 4 18 11 4 2 1 2 0 0 128 1240 DATA 0 32 16 64 8 64 15 8 32 72 16 32 64 6 0 0 0 127 0 0 127 0 0 0 128 1250 DATA 7 0 0 0 8 4 16 2 1
26. So the attribute byte constructed in Figure 15 5b CHR 154 uses the top eight pins starts printing in column 1 and ends in column 10 204 Note that the proportional print information is used only when the character is printed in Proportional Mode Otherwise the full range of columns 0 to 11 is used Also note that if 7 bit system users set the high order bit with CHR 27 gt before they use the CHRS 27 amp sequence it stays on for the attribute and character data bytes One final note Even if you choose not to print the columns from 0 through 11 you must send the printer 11 data numbers plus the attribute byte The printer expects 12 data numbers for each character no matter what So much for the example In the current program se the attribute byte to 139 139 in binary is 10001011 This value starts at column 0 ends at column 11 and uses the top 8 pins of the print head Seven bit Systems can use 139 or 11 Either way the printer will use the bottom 8 pins for 7 bit systems Add 140 LPRINT CHR 139 Printing User D efined Characters If you RUN the program at this point it will define the character E in RAM area 0 assuming switch 1 4 is off but only the ROM version of the E will print Try it Add 180 LPRINT EEEEE 200 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END EEEEE Sure enough the FX prints a Roman Pica E To print your newly defined character you must tell the printer to ignore the ROM and print only RAM
27. UNDERLINING IS SIMPLE TO TURN ON OFF You can underline virtually anything you want even a series of blank spaces Try adding this line typing in the spaces where we have used characters SOLPRINT UNDERLINING IS SIMPLE TO TURN ON OFF Being able to underline a blank space really helps when you want to make a form that has lines to be filled in later with signatures or data The FX Underline Mode can even underline leading spaces with BASIC TABS although it doesn t work with the FX s internal tabs that are set with ESCape D see Chapter 9 Underline Mode does not use the FX s underline character Since the underline character is itself only five dots wide it would not print in the spaces that separate the text characters See this by printing a row of underline characters above the text in the current program 10 FOR X 1 TO 42 LPRINT CHR 95 NEXT X LPRINT UNDERLINING IS SIMPLE TO TURN ON OFF When the FX is in Underline Mode it is simply using the ninth pin to underscore the entire passage How far under a character its underline appears depends on the model of FX that is printing The FX 100 prints a character and its underline at the same time and the underline occurs on the ninth row of the nine row character matrix This means that the underline prints over the bottom row of the descender for a few lowercase letters such as y and g 70 The FX 80 on the other hand can perform a reverse line feed
28. you use it carefully the RESTORE statement can reduce the amount of data that you need to type in for a graphics pattern Repeated DATA numbers Sometimes you will want to repeat the same DATA number several times in succession Here s a change that gives an instance 90DATA 8 28 62 93 28 28 28 28 28 28 93 62 28 8 At the center of this program line you fire the middle three pins with CH R 28 six times in succession Six 28s was boring enough to type Can you imagine typing the data for 20 or 50 repetitions of the same number There has to be a better way and there is You can enter the number of repetitions right into the DATA lines coded as a negative number Then change the READ routine to test for a negative number When the program reads a negative number it transfers control to a special subroutine that does the repeating Or you could use a STRIN G statement Change lines 50 and 90 and add lines 100 110 and 120sothat your listing looks like this 20 AS CHRS 27 14 CHRS 0 30 FOR Y 1 TO 10 RESTORE LPRINT 9 40FOR 1 50 READ N IF N 0 THEN 100 60 LPRINT 70 NEXT X NEXT Y 156 80 LPRINT CHR 27 END QODATA 8 28 62 93 6 28 93 62 28 8 100 READ R FOR J 1 TO N 110 LPRINT CHRS R NEXT J 120 X X N 1 GOTO 70 RUN it again Same arrow pattern right And with less data The number of repetitions 6 is entered into the DATA line as a negative number that is
29. 201 205 216 222 223 Comparison table for control codes 287 294 Compressed Mode 53 55 CHR 15 turns it on CHR 18 turns it off DIP switch adjustment for 54 55 margin settings in 117 Concept See Corvus Continuous feed paper See Paper 240 Control codes 41 42 Hex dumping and See Hex dumping for FX compared with those for MX and RX 287 294 listed by function 283 286 listed by number 271 281 See also specific modes and functions Control panel Conventions used in this manual iii vi Core sets of user defined characters 223 226 Corvus Concept computers Covers See lids D DATA statements 154 156 166 167 Data transfer sequence 335 336 DEC microcomputers 151 Default settings 44 295 296 Density See Graphics Mode Designing graphics See Graphics DIMensioning See Arrays Dimensions of printer 329 DIP switches 20 23 296 299 Dot matrix 49 52 in dot graphics 131 132 patterns for character fonts 49 52 253 270 Double Strike Mode 61 62 63 ESCape turns it on ESCape I P turns it off Downloading See User defined characters Dress up Modes See Underline Mode Script Mode Italic Mode Driver See Printer driver Dumping hex See Hex dumping Elite Mode 52 53 ESCape turns it on ESCape P turns it off Emphasized Mode 62 64 ESCape turns it on ESCape turns it off END v Environment specifications for 329 Epson computers See I K 20 QX 10
30. 4 x 4 bl 4 4 x 4 4 E 4 Mmmm LOW SFEED DOUBLE DENSITY GRAPHICS Figure 11 3 Overlapping dots 148 Quadruple D ensity Graphics M ode The FX also gives you the ability to print dots four times as densely as in Single Density Change the 1 line 20 to a 3 and lines 30 and 50 to read 20 AS CHRS 27 CHRS 3 CHRS 50 0 30 BS CHRS 85 42 50 LPRINT UADRUPLE DENSITY GRAPHICS EN QUADRUPLE DENSITY GRAPHICS In Quadruple Density Graphics Mode any FX can print 480 times 4 or 1920 columns of dots on a single amp inch line and the FX 100 can print 816 times 4 or 3264 columns on a 13 6 inch line The graphics setting required to fill an entire amp inch line in this mode is n equals 128 and n equals seven since 7 times 256 plus 128 equals 1920 Atthis density the same limitation as for High Speed Double Density Graphics Mode applies you can t print two adjacent dots in the same row More densities Yes there are more densities Besides the three graphics densities we ve covered so far Single Double and Quadruple the FX can print in two graphics densities that match the screen densities of two types of CRTs One of these may allow you to develop designs and then print them in the same weight Additionally the FX can simulate the density that plotters use called one to one aspect ratio This mode prints the same density horizontally as vertically 72 dots per inch each
31. 5 200 NEXT R 220 LPRINT CHR F RETURN Understanding the subroutine is easy if you take it one step at a time This subroutine calculates the pin firing pattern F for each column of Seven dots It examines the array vertically one cell at a time When it 179 encounters a one it adds the appropriate power of two to F line 190 The exponent is the difference between the current row R and the last row in this pass of the print head P 6 S Line 220 sends to the printer as a graphics pin pattern 10 DEFINT A N 21 DIM A N N 20 FOR R21 TO FOR 1 TO 30 D SOR R 11 2 C 11 2 40 IF INT D 5 10 THEN A R C 1 50 NEXT C 60 PRINT ROW R NEXT R 70 LPRINT 27 1 7 0 1 6 5 0 FOR P B TO E STEP 7 S 0 PRINT LOADING ROWS P TO P 6 S 0 LPRINT 27 0 CHS CHRS 0 150 FOR 1 TO GOSUB 180 NEXT C 0 0 0 0 LPRINT NEXT P LPRINT CHR 27 Q END F 0 FOR R P TO P 6 S STEP S 1 190 IF A R C 1 THEN F F 2 ABS P 6 S R 200 NEXT 220 LPRINT CHRS F RETURN Check your listing against the program above to make sure you have it all If you do type RUN The array looks like this printout when it s translated into dots If all went wel skip to the Higher resolution section below If not take the time to find out a code solution Code solutions If your printout doesn
32. 8 NEXT X 50 LPRINT CHR 18 BACKSPACES Compressed off 60 NEXT J LPRINT CHR 27 Q Reset and RUN the program BACKSPACES Bath f E 82 The 17 backspaces line 40 are printed in Compressed Mode The difference in character widths makes the second printing of the word BACKSPACES be offset from the first In the next program the offset is a little more dramatic Change the following lines 30 LPRINT BACKSPACE CHRS 15 40 FOR X 1 TO 15 LPRINT CHRS 8 NEXT X 50 LPRINT CHR 18 BACKSPACE BACKSPACES BAC Sr Aces After the FX prints each BACKSPACE it moves the print head 15 Compressed positions backward Instead of bold characters you get a shadow effect You could spend all day mixing pitch modes to get different eyestretching effects Unidirectional Mode The FX printers provide high quality printouts in their normal bidirectional print mode However there may be situations in which vertical columns printed in Elite or Compressed Mode get slightly mis aligned The printer has a Unidirectional Mode to prevent such prob lems see how effective Unidirectional Mode can be le s create a long vertical line First we ll print it in the usual bidirectional manner Begin by typing 20 LPRINT CHRS 27 1 CHRS 27 1 40 40 FOR X 1 TO 10 LPRINT CHR 124 NEXT X 50 LPRINT 27 Line 20 sets the line spacing to seven dots and the left margin to 40 To create t
33. 8 0 8 i 990 DATA 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 j 1000DATA 0 0 0 0 127 0 0 0 0 0 0 k 1010 DATA 84 0 170 0 84 0 170 4 noct You can put the line graphics characters to work like this 100 LPRINT CHR 27 1 175 LPRINT k NAME k PHONE k 180 LPRINT fgjjjjjjijjjjjjgh 190 LPRINT djjjjjjejjjiijjc RUN the program to produce pair of boxes as shown below NAME p Note the the text lines use only uppercase letters since you ve replaced the lowercase versions with your own characters Make sure you SAVE this program as LINE but before you do delete lines 170 to 196 Summary In this chapter we ve shown you how to combine user defined char acters horizontally vertically and both ways at once We ve also given you two core sets of characters SIX and LINE 226 Chapter 17 Business Applications In this chapter we turn our attention to business applications First we program a sample barchart Then we use designs from previous chapters to develop a program that puts the FX through its paces The programs pull together many of the programming techniques that you ve used in the course of this manual The second one is con siderably longer than the programs in previous chapters and the length provides two benefits First you ll have a chance to really test your own understanding of the FX printer Second a longer program shows you how versatile your printer can be Preparation Load the LI
34. 8 2 Two inch form feed Check it by changing your program lines as shown below and RUN ning the program again see if your printout matches Figure 8 3 10 LPRINT 27 2 30LPRINT TWO LINE FORM CHRS 12 THO LTE FORTI TWO LTME FORM TWO L THE FORE FORM Figure 8 3 Two line form feed 106 Why does the printer give you two options In some cases setting the form length by inches is more convenient If you know how many inches long the form should be the printer will calculate the correct setting for you regardless of the current line spacing On the other hand setting the form length by number of lines is the only way you can set extremely long form lengths If you set the line spacing to its maximum of 85 72 inch and you also set the form length to its maximum of 127 lines you get a form that is nearly 150 inches long Compare this to the maximum of 22 inches that you get when you set form length in inches Except for this difference your choice of form setting command is a matter of per sonal preference Either format of CHR 27 C sets the form length in the line spac ing that is in effect when the command is given Subsequent changes in line spacing will not affect it This can be important in the graphics programs later in this manual Paper Perforation Skip You can avoid printing on the paper perforation by setting the top of form properly and making sure the printer
35. DELete or CANcel codes at the start of your program to dear out these characters Alternate Formats for ESCape Sequences Adivating each of the many FX features with a sequence that con sists of the ESCape code plus another character string command can be cumbersome to use and difficult to remember Fortunately there are techniques for shortening the format The simplest method is to shorten the character string command that follows the ESCape code Instead of using CHR and a number in parentheses you can useinside quotation marks the ASCII char acter that corresponds to the number For example you have already seen that you can send the Reset Code with CH R 27 CH R 64 Because the 9 symbol is the ASCII equivalent of 64 this command can also be typed as CHR 27 We use this shorter format whenever possible To see it in your current program change lines 10 and 30 The ASCII symbol for the 52 of line 10 is the number 4 and the symbol for the 53 of line 30 is the number 5 so enter the following 10 LPRINT 27 4 30 27 5 Now use RUN to make sure that both ESCape sequences work as before You can also shorten your programs by storing the ESCape code in a character string If you enter A CHR4 27 an early line of a program you can simply enter A each time you want the ESCape code For example the following lines produce the same results as the previous ones 5
36. ESCape To see its effect try this NEW 10 LPRINT CHR 27 GDOUBLE STRIKE PRINT IS DARKER 20 LPRINT CHR 27 H THAN SINGLE STRIKE and RUN it DOUBLE STRIKE PRINT IS DARKER THAN SINGLE STRIKE In this mode the individual dots are less noticeable and the characters are more fully formed than in Single Strike 61 The way Double Strike gets this result is rather dever the FX prints each character in the regular fashion until it reaches either the end of the line or the point at which you have Double Strike turn off Then the FX shifts the paper up slightly and prints the Double Strike pas sage again This means that every dot in each row of the character gets a shadow see Figure 4 1 Double Strike Mode fills in some of the more visible gaps between the dots of a character The end result is better looking print x PITT TT et b E m i w Figure 4 1 Single Strike and Double Strike letters Differences between Double Strike and Single Strike printing don t stop with the quality of print Since each passage prints twice the throughput of the Double Strike M ode is less than that of Single Strike It s the old trade off between speed and print quality With a normal print speed of 160 characters per second cps the FX still moves along pretty quickly in the Double Strike M ode Emphasized Mode There is yet another way you can increase the boldness of your printed charac
37. First since these com mands clear text out of the buffer as CAN cel CH R 24 does you should not issue margin commands at the end of a program line that produces a print line A good rule is always send your new mar gin command before you send the print line Second the left margin command has a profound effect on horizon tal tabs It moves the tab columns horizontally based on the new left margin as the zero column In other words use this order e set margins first set tabs as needed e then send the print line The third factor that can affect your new margins and tabs is reset ting Since the FX returns to its default settings whenever you reset the printer you must be careful about using the Reset Code 27 in a program and about turning the printer off dur ing a series of runs Tabs Your printer contains default horizontal tabs set at every eight spaces and default vertical tabs set at every other line You can issue one command to use these default tabs or you can issue other com mands to change them You may change tabs in either a regulated evenly spaced pattern or so that the tabs vary You may also set vertical tabs in sets called channels In this manual we often use the terms column and row to refer to the positioning of dots within a matrix or in graphics on a page In this chapter we will use the terms column and row instead to refer to the positioning of characters on a page 118
38. Horizontal tab usage The FX has the ability to tab horizontally and it has default tabs set in the current pitch at columns 8 16 24 32 every eight Pica Spaces on out to the current width of the page We will show you how to change the tabs to suit your needs more dosely but first let s see how the printer s tabs work You can move the print head from any position on the print line to the next tab stop with the ASCII horizontal tab code CHR 9 You use CHR 9 or CHR 137 if 9 is a number your system does not send to move from stop to stop whether the stop is a default tab or a tab that you have set Using the exact line numbers shown enter this sample program 10 5 137 A 0123456780 30FOR 1 TO 3 LPRINT A NEXT X LPRINT 40FOR 2 1 TO 3 50 LPRINT H TOP 60 NEXT J LPRINT 120 LPRINT CHR 27 and compare your RUN with Figure 9 6 101224536789012354567890123426787 TOF TOF T r Figure 9 6 Default horizontal tabs This shows that the default tabs each represented by the T of the word TOP are set in columns 8 16 24 32 etc Remember that the column count starts at O 119 Note that many BASICs handle numbers differently from strings This difference is most evident when you are printing columns that contain mixtures of numbers and strings many BASICs automati cally add spaces both before and after each number You may have to make adjustments if you want to have a
39. Main columns Intermediate 5 5 Pica and Elite letters Pitch comparison Pica and Expanded letters Single Strike and Double Strike letters Single Strike Expanded and Emphasized letters Mode priorities ola iN iln ees este Ss ERRE Sls Al 51 53 xiii 51 52 53 6 1 6 2 7 1 7 2 7 3 8 1 8 2 8 3 8 4 9 1 9 2 9 3 9 4 9 5 9 6 9 7 9 8 9 9 9 10 911 9 12 9 13 10 1 10 2 10 3 10 4 11 1 11 2 11 3 11 4 11 5 11 6 11 7 xiv Master Select Program Master Select choices Dress up combinations Bidirectional line Unidirectional Default line 5 Cascading STAIR STEPS Staggering STAIR STEPS Setting the top of form Two inch form Two line form feed Standardskip Left margin setting Listing at new margin Absolute left margin Right margin set incorrectly Right margin set correctly Default horizontal l
40. ROM characters to the RAM area See User defined characters ESCape lt Turns on One line Unidirectional Mode See Unidirectional Mode ESCape Sets high order bit off See Bit high order ESCape gt Sets high order bit on See bit high order ESCape s CHR n Reassigns an alternate graphics code s See Graphics Graphics Mode ESCape Reset Code See Reset Code ESCape Sets line spacing to n 72 See Line spacing ESCape B CHR n CHR n CHR 0 Sets vertical tabs See Tabs vertical ESCape C CHR 0 CHR n Sets the form length in inches See Forms ESCape Sets the form length in lines See Forms ESCape D CHR n CHR n CHR O Sets horizontal tabs See Tabs horizontal ESCape Turns Emphasized Mode on See Emphasized Mode ESCape F Turns Emphasized Mode off See Emphasized Mode ESCape Turns Double Strike Mode on See Double Strike Mode ESCape H Turns Double Strike Mode off See Double Strike Mode ESCape I0 Returns codes O 31 to control codes See User defined characters 242 ESCape I1 Enables printing of control codes 0 31 See User defined characters ESCape Produces an immediate one time line feed of n 216 inch without a carriage return See Line feed ESCape K CHR n CHR n Turns Single Density Graphics Mode on See Graphics Mode ESCape L CHR n CHR n Turns Low Speed Double Dens
41. Several different print modes that can be combined to produce a variety of print styles These indude Roman and Italic print fonts Six different print pitches Two kinds of bold printing Master Select feature for instant use of any one of 16 popular print combinations Proportionally spaced characters for professional looking docu ments Easy to use Underline and Super Subscript Modes Detailed forms handling capability including the setting of horizon tal and vertical tabs margins form length a skip over perforation feature and variable line feeds Up to 233 characters per line with the FX 100 for spreadsheet users User definable character sets With this powerful feature you can create your own alphabets and special symbols High resolution graphics capability with six densities to let you cre ate your own charts diagrams figures and illustrations International character sets Typewriter simulation mode with the FX 80 Program debugging mode hexadecimal dump of codes received from the computer Fast print speed 160 characters per second for rapid processing of documents 2K print buffer for smooth operation Adjustable tractor unit for narrow forms e Both friction and tractor feed capability e Replaceable print head e Easy to reach DIP switches to customize printer features e Epson reliability quality and support In short the FX is loaded with features that will challenge your ability to put them
42. The FX prints user defined characters the same way it does any other ASCII characters But before you can take advantage of this fantastic feature you must first make a little preparation 199 Preparation DIP switch 1 4 controls the use of the FX s 2K RAM buffer You can use this RAM memory as a large text buffer to smooth printer com puter communications or you can store in it a set of user defined characters Unfortunately it can t serve both purposes simultane ously In this and succeeding chapters we ll use this RAM area for user defined charaders So set switch 1 4 off before proceeding Character Definition Characters are defined with the ESCape amp command sequence The format is LPRINT CHRS 27 amp CHRS c CHRS c The r tells the printer in which RAM area the characters are to be stored With a stock printer there is only one area available RAM area 0 The notations cand cspecify the range of characters to be defined You can use the entire range of ASCII numbers from 0 to 255 for which the ROM characters are shown in Appendix A except for those areas where control codes reside 0 to 31 127 to 159 and 255 You can also use some of the control code locations but only after special ESCape codes are issued We ll get to that a bit later Here s how c and cwork Suppose you want to redefine the letters from A to E The associated ASCII numbers are 65to 69 so you simply let c be 6
43. We hope they inspire you to indude graphics in your own programs Planning Process It should be apparent by now that printing high resolution images requires careful planning and lots of data Programs available for some computers enable users to draw figures on the screen then echo them to the printer Without such a program there really is no quick and easy way to calculate the data required for pin patterns Once you have a design you can usually plan your graphics program most easily by following these steps 1 Plot the design dot by dot on graph paper 159 2 Translate the dots into their appropriate pin numbers seven or eight rows depending on your computer system s capability at a time 3 Figure out the easiest way to send those numbers to the printer Once you get the hang of it the whole process is easy It does require some patience but sometimes when regular patterns form your designs you can use the computer to do most of the tedious work It can calculate the pin patterns Follow the development of the programs in this chapter then get yourself some graph paper and a pencil and have a good time STRATA Program This program prints in Double Density Graphics Mode a sample logo that will be used again in Chapter 17 As shown in Figure 12 1 we drew the design on graph paper using six horizontal rows consist ing of 7 vertical dots to correspond to the 7 dot line spadng we will use Each of these row
44. Z 1 TO 2 and change these three 60 PRINT T MINUS N R NEXT R 100 IF 2 2 THEN B 1 E N 6 5 1 160 LPRINT NEXT P NEXT 7 Now lines 80 90 and 100 changethe order in which the array is read First Z 21 it s read upside down then Z 2 right side up as before This is the full listing 10 DEFINT A N 21 DIM A N N 20 FOR R 1 TO N FOR C 1 TO 30D SQR R 24C 2 0 IF INT D 5 20 THEN A R C 1 0 NEXT C 0 PRINT T MINUS N R NEXT R 0 LPRINT 27 1 7 0 BzN E27 5 1 0 FOR Z 1 TO 2 1 gt 183 100 IF 7 2 THEN B 1 E N 6 5 1 110 FOR P B TO E STEP 7 5 120 PRINT LOADING ROWS P TO 6 5 130 LPRINT CHR 27 CHR 5 2 N CHR 0 140 FOR C N TO 1 STEP 1 GOSUB 180 NEXT C 150 FOR 1 TO GOSUB 180 NEXT C 160 LPRINT NEXT P NEXT Z 170 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END 180 F 0 FOR R P TO P 6 S STEP 5 190 IF A R C 1 THEN F F 2 ABS P 6 S R 200 NEXT R 220 LPRINT CHRS F RETURN Go ahead and RUN it to see how it works There are two important points here 1 instead of tracing the circle like a plotter the program gathers the pattern in the computer s mem ory then prints it line by line 2 the program takes advantage of symmetry to print a figure four times the size of the original array Exploding galaxy With a few more program changes you can turn this mundane drde into a design for an exploding galaxy Firs
45. amp EPSON FX SERIES PRINTER User s Manual VOLUME 1 TUTORIAL By David A Kater EduKater FCC COMPLIANCE STATEMENT FOR AMERICAN USERS This equipment generates and uses radio frequency energy and if not installed and used properly that is in strict accordance with the manufacturer s instructions may cause interference to radio and television reception It has been type tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B computing device in accordance with the specifications in Subpart J of Part 15 of FCC rules which are designed to provide reasonable protection against such interference in a residential installation However there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation If this equipment does cause inter ference to radio or television reception which can be determined by turning the equip ment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures Reorient the receiving antenna the computer with respect to the receiver Move the computer into a different outlet so that computer and receiver are on different branch circuits If necessary the user should consult the dealer or an experienced radio television techni cian for additional suggestions The user may find the following booklet prepared by the Federal Communications Commission helpful How to Identify and Resolve Radio TV Interference Problems Th
46. are absolute they do not change when you change the size of a space For example suppose you want to add to this form a graphics logo that uses special line spacing If you forget to return to 12 dot spacing before the FX prints the next text after the logo the line spadng will go awry but each tab stop will remain the same distance from the top of form See that the tab stops are absolute by adding these two lines to your program 25 LPRINT CHR 27 A CHRS S 4 250 LPRINT 27 Line 25 changes the line spacing from 12 72 inch to 4 72 inch line 250 125 uses the Reset Code to return the FX to 12 dot spacing RUNning this program produces a printout to match Figure 9 12 RENTAL MAINTENANCE REQUEST o ADARRE TENANT O O O O O O Q Figure 9 12 Absolute vertical tabs Be sure to delete line 25 after you ve seen its effect Vertical tab channels Vertical tab channels are especially helpful in two situations The first occurs when you are writing a program to accompany a pre printed form that can accommodate various types of responses The second occurs when you create a multipage form or report with different vertical tabs on each page 126 You can store up to eight channels of tab stops numbered from 0 to 7 You use a format that is similar to the one for a single set CHR 27 b CHRS CHRRS n CHR n 0 where N stands for a reference number between zero an
47. characters The format for this instruction is LPRINT CHR 27 CHR n CHRS n 27 sequence determines the currently active charac ter set The n selects either ROM 0 RAM 1 while n selects the area 0 is the only area available The command to activate the RAM area is 120 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS 1 CHRS 0 205 but before you print the user defined E make it more visible by adding 170 LPRINT CHRS 27 8 190 CHR 27 Q Line 170 uses the Master Select code to print Double Strike Expanded Emphasized Pica characters Line 190 uses the Master Select to return to Pica Mode Here are the lines you ve typed so far 120 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS 1 0 OLPRINT 27 amp CHRS 0 EE 140 LPRINT CHR 139 150FOR X 1 TO 11 READ C LPRINT CHR C NEXT X 170 LPRINT CHRS 27 8 180 LPRINT EEEEE 190 LPRINT 27 200 LPRINT 27 END 1170 DATA 62 65 8 65 8 65 28 65 34 0 0 E Let s see what it looks like in Proportional Mode without the last two columns printed Add 140 LPRINT CHR 137 175 LPRINT 27 pl See how the Es are packed dosely together Fine Before proceeding change back to monospadng by deleting line 175 and changing 140 140 LPRINT 139 While you are in the neighborhood take a look at some of the other characte
48. column of numbers line up Test this out on your machine with the following changes 70FOR 2 1 TO 9 80 LPRINT H J 90 NEXT J LPRINT Figure 9 7 shows the text heading TOP centered above each column of numbers Since each column is three spaces wide and each number consists of a single numeral the automatic space placed before each number does the centering Remember the way your system handles numbers so that you can make adjustments as necessary O1254567899012545678981 25456789 TOE TOF TOF i Figure 9 7 Tabs with text and numbers When you want to use a tab stop that is not your first stop you simply enter an extra character string tab command for each stop that you want to skip over In your current program for instance you would put your first column at the second stop by making line 50 read 50 LPRINT 5 5 Since we use this technique within a program later we do not indude a printout here 120 Variable horizontal tabs You can change the default horizontal tab settings by specifying new tab stops To do this use the format CHRS 27 D CHR n CHR n CHR 0 where n and n stand for the first and last of a series of new tab stops and the CH R 0 informs the printer that you are through setting tabs The FX can store up to 32 tab stops you may specify one or all of these You may also add stops to one or more of the default tabs as in the next version of your current
49. dots high and six columns of dots wide Look at any letter on your printout it s made up of a series of dots And as you can see in Appendix A every letter fits inside this six by nine grid 6 columns mm o 2 ME uw a 4 MER o o 4 aiio dn 4k dha 40 4 da 46 dh 4 rN 4 La La da da 46 4 O AA rN Ld r Ld L3 d sh 3 EE Figure 3 1 Dot matrix characters 49 Figure 3 1 shows one each of lower and uppercase letters The p gives an example of the way a few lowercase letters use the bottom two rows of the matrix All numbers uppercase letters and most symbols are formed within the top seven rows of the matrix Main columns The construction of the print head restricts the maximum height of any character to nine dots As shown in Figure 3 2 the print head uses a vertical column of nine pins actually wires Because there is only one column of pins the head must move sideways sequentially to each of the different column positions of the matrix then firethe appropriate pins Electrical impulses cause the FX to fire pins at the paper As a pin is fired it presses against the ribbon to produce one dot of the matrix At each position the printer fires only the pins that are necessary to print the current column of the character Print wires In action Figure 3 2 The print head To print
50. exponents increase in order from 0 to 6 The second time the routine is called N equals 6 minus X which reverses the order from 6 down to 0 The flag F of line 50 adivates the change of direction and line 90 reflects the value for the exponent This two directional slash routine can be repeated indefinitely For an interesting variation alternate the direction of the slashes each time a pair is printed by changing the flag in line 50 20 FOR L l TO 2 30FOR J 0 TO 9 50 GOSUB 80 F 1 F GOSUB 80 60 NEXT J LPRINT NEXT L CS aS s SNL UP e ar S ur P PS ar at e Fx ES Lu wu ur D uu M s ur Su In this version of the program Line 50 makes F alternate between zero and one The J loop repeats pairs of diagonals on one line while the L loop adds a second line Wave pattern For most graphics programs you ll want to change from the normal 2 dot line spacing to 7 dot or B dot spacing if can use the top pin Add line 10 to make your listing look like this 10 0 LPRINT CHR 27 1 20 FOR 1 1 TO 2 30FOR 2 0 TO 9 40 LPRINT CHR 27 K CHRS 14 CHRS 0 50 GOSUB 80 F 1 F GOSUB 80 60 NEXT J LPRINT NEXT L 70 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END 80 FOR X 0 TO 6 90 N X IF F 1 THEN N 6 X 110 LPRINT CHR 2 N 120 NEXT X RETURN 140 um NL S un RS P MM u AONO Ve ue ue Nur a NR eu uH P ae See what a big difference
51. followed by the pattern 28 to be repeated Yet even with this short cut graphics designs do require that you plan and enter lots of data In the next few chapters we ll show you more ways to take advantage of design patterns to reduce the amount of data needed Summary We began this chapter by adding up pin labels and using the total to fire four graphics pins at one time We changed that program to show that the Reset Code does not affect either graphics commands or data And we commented on problems that may arise from software inter facing when you try to send codes that represent added up pin labels After this general discussion we introduced two new graphics den sities that have specific commands You can print Double Density at one of two speeds 160 cps High and 80 cps Low The second of these modes Quadruple Density prints only at Low We then introduced a new single command with which you can access any one of the seven FX graphics modes Table 11 1 summarizes them Here are the commands that we introduced in this chapter CHR 27 CHR m CH R n CH R n Enters Variable Density Graphics M ode and specifies a mode and the width setting where m is mode 0 6 Width n 256 n where n is 0 255 and n isO 7 CHRS 27 Y CHR n CH R n Enters High Speed DoubleDensity Graphics Mode and specifies the width setting Width n 256 n where n is 0 255 and n is 0 7 157 CHR 27 L CHR n CH R
52. form length say 2 or 14 inches The printer has no way of measuring the length of your paper You must tell the FX about your shorter or longer form The CHR 27 C command gives you two ways to change the form length by inches or by lines CHR 27 C CHRS O CHR n Sets the form length to n inches 1 22 CHRS 27 C CHRS n Sets the form length to n lines 1 127 CHR 0 makes the difference between the two commands To see the first format in action run the following program Enter NEW 10 LPRINT CHRS 27 C CHRS 2 CHRS 2 20FOR X 1 TO 4 30LPRINT TWO INCH FORM CHRS 12 40 NEXT X 50 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHR 27 C is the key It changes the form length in the printer s memory so that the string TWO INCH FORM is printed at the top of each new form It also resets the top of form to the current position of the print head on the paper It works just as if you d turned the printer off and on but without the resetting of other defaults that happens when you set the top of form by using CHR 27 3 or by cyding power In the program above line 10 uses the inches format to set the form length to two inches The CHR 12 in line 30 adivates the form feed to move the paper to the top of the next two inch form The second format the one without CH R 0 sets the form length by counting in the current line spacing the number of lines 105 FORI Figure
53. form used by a rental agent NEW 10 V CH R 11 20 LPRINT CHR 27 B CHR 8 CH R 18 CH R 18 CH 27 CHR 37 CHR 48 CH R O 30 LPRINT V RENTAL MAINTENANCE REQUEST 50 LPRINT V 90 LPRINT V TENANT So that your program will be concise line 10 defines the vertical tab bing code as V Then line 20 specifies the six lines to which the printer will tab When you RUN this program the two sets of text of lines 30 and 90 print out at the first and third stops while line 50 causes the printer to skip over the second stop Figure 9 10 shows the printout You set the first tab for line 3 but the first printing is on the fourth line This is because the printer counts the first line as the zero line 123 RENTAL MAINTENANCE REQUEST TENANT O O O e O O O Figure 9 10 Ordinary vertical tabs Once you have tabbed to a stop you can print more than one line of text at that position See this by changing line 50 and adding the three lines shown below to your current program If you enter the number of spaces that we have indicated with Ms the entries will line up neatly 50 LPRINT V LOCATION 60 LPRINT ADDRESS 70 LPRINT CITY 80 LPRINT STATE Your printout should look like Figure 9 11 124 RENTAL MAINTENANCE REQUEST LOCATION ADDRESS TY TENANT O O O O O O O e Figure 9 11 Text at tab stop Just as for horizontal tabs vertical tab settings
54. four low pins This is basically the same program as theone you used to print the first slash in the last chapter but we ve added a new wrinkle We have you store the concatenated string for entering Single Density Graphics Mode in the variable A and the string for data in B The first variable makes it easy to enter a Graphics Mode several times in one program and the second to send data repeatedly 143 Graphics and the Reset Code You may have wondered about the semicolon we had you place after the B inline40 If this line were text rather than graphics data this semicolon would cause the text and the Reset Code CHR 27 inline80 to be placed in the same text buffer and consequently the Reset Code would wipe the text out This doesn t happen with the graphics command and its data because the CHR 27 K command itself dumps everything from the buffer to the printer By the time the Reset Code makes its appearance both the command and its data are gone To seethis in action add a lineto your program 50 INPUT A The INPUT causes the program run to pause for you to see that the graphics design is printed before the program reaches the Reset Codein line 80 To let the program finish press your carriage return key There s an important correlation to note Anything that was in the buffer prior to the graphics string remains unscathed and anything left behind is erased To verify this make these changes in
55. in line 100 makes the bottom row a mirror image of the top 141 Summary You enter Graphics Mode with the CHR 27 K CHR n CHR n command You determine the number of graphics columns by filling the two reservation slots n and n You fire your pin patterns by adding up the pin labels which consist of powers of two Here is the command we introduced in this chapter CHR 27 K CHRS n CHR n Enters Single Density Graphics Mode and spe dfies width setting Width n 256 n where n is 0 255 and n is 0 7 the FX 80 and 0 12 ontheFX 100 Note Single Density graphics dots are printed 60 per inch horizon tally and 72 per inch vertically 142 Chapter 11 Varieties of Graphics D ensity We introduced you to FX graphics by having you use Single Density Graphics Mode and a single pin per column In this chapter we cover six more graphics densities and provide examples of designs that use pin combinations We also offer you several tips for program ming graphics Graphics Programming Tips Let s start with a program that fires the four low graphics pins in each column Since these pins are labelled 1 2 4 and 8 and since the sum of these four labels is 15 send a CHRS 15 to the printer NEW 20 AS CHRS 27 K CHRS 100 CHRS 0 30 BS CHRS 15 40 LPRINT A FOR X 1 TO 100 LPRINT B NEXT X 80 LPRINT 27 Sure enough CHR 15 fires the
56. introduced in this chapter listed in the order of their appearance CHR 27 M Turns Elite Mode ON CHR 27 P Turns Elite OFF CHR 15 Turns Compressed Mode ON CHR 18 Turns Compressed set either by software or by hardware OFF CHR 14 Turns Expanded Mode 1 line ON CHR 20 Turns Expanded 1 line OFF CHR 27 W1 Turns Expanded M ode continuous version ON CHR 27 WO Turns Expanded either the 1 line or the con tinuous version OFF 60 Chapter 4 Print Quality In the last chapter you learned how to change the width of the printed characters to achieve six different print pitches The FX printer also offers several modes that improve print quality without affecting pitch The three new modes that we discuss in this chapter are Double Strike Emphasized and Proportional After we cover these modes separately we discuss combining them with pitch modes Bold Modes Each of the modes we discuss here produces darker characters than do the Single Strike modes we discussed in Chapter 3 and each gets its bold effect by printing overlapping dots Because Proportional Mode includes Emphasized it also produces bold characters The difference between Double Strike and Emphasized Modes lies in the direction the print head moves before it prints the overlapping dots Double Strike Mode The Double Strike M ode prints each line twice You turn Double Strike on with ESCape It stays on until you turn it off with
57. is informed of the cor rect form length Then your appropriately placed form feeds will keep the printing off the perforation But there are some situations in which you will find that sending form feeds on every page is inconvenient and others in which you can t control the process with a BASIC program A good example of the latter is printing a listing of a long BASIC program If your com puter system s LLIST command doesn t automatically skip perfora tions most printers can t compensate Your FX however can it can automatically output a form feed at the bottom of every page to clean up those listings You can think of it as an automatic skip over perforation command Skip command ESCape the skip over perforation command can automati cally skip lines at the bottom of each page to avoid printing right on the perforation but you must first inform the printer of two things 1 where the correct top of form is and 2 how long the current forms are 107 For standard 11 inch forms just position the paper correctly before turning on the printer for other form lengths use the CHR 27 C command It s time to try this out Make sure the perforation is even with the top of the ribbon as in Figure 8 1 reset the printer then type NEW 10 LPRINT 27 6 20 FOR X 1 TO 70 30 LPRINT SIX LINE SKIP LINE X 40 NEXT X Figure 8 4 shows the skip SIX LINE SEIF SIX LINE SKIF SIX LI
58. is one of these you should change our ENDsto STOPs When the presence of one or more blank spaces in a program line is especially important we use a special character b pronounced blank to represent the spaces This makes it easier for you to count the number you need For example the following SAMPLE STRING means that you should type in one blank space for each b SAMPLE STRING The use of the b symbol makes it easy for you to count the eight spaces needed between the quotation mark and the beginning of the first word The b also calls your attention to single blank spaces that are needed immediately before or after a quotation mark For example the following makes dear that you must type one space between the quotation mark and the word and LPRINT AND EASY TO TURN OFF When we indude a programming REMark in a program line it is always preceded by an apostrophe the short form of the BASIC command REM For example we use 10 LPRINT 27 Reset Code and 99 Data lines for graphics The computer ignores these remarks they merely serve to help pro grammers understand at a glance the way a program is working You may type them in or not depending on whether you think you will want them in the future We use the caret symbol to indicate exponents For example X Y 2 means let X equal Y raised to the second power Some computer sys tems use an up arrow t which prints as a
59. left bracket on FX printers At the end of each chapter a Summary section provides a concise review of the chapter s subject matter and a list of the control codes if any that have been covered For listings of the control codes in nu merical order and in functional groupings see Appendixes B and C When we refer to an FX mode by name we capitalize it Compressed Mode Italic Mode Pica Mode Script Modes and for clarity we capitalize such names even when the word mode does not appear Script characters and Italic print vi FX Series Printer User s M anual Volume 1 Contents AR Td Kira Conventions Used in This List of Figures eerie List of Tables 1 Inside the Printer 2 Inside This Manual 2 Programmer s Easy Lesson First SIGNS ies ise bb a reb Ticket Program Ticket Program Description The FX Printers Additional Supplies and Accessories 16 Printer Location 16 Printer Preparation Paper separator COVES aeania tastes Manual feed knob 19 DIP 5 20 Ribbon Installa
60. line SPACING Variable line spacing Microscopic line Spacing Gne Peete EL TT TU Onetime immediate line feed Reverse feed FX 80 only SUMMARY ERR ec eda eae ROC Forms Control Form Length Control Form feed lt Not so standard forms Paper Perforation Skip Skip command DIP switch skip SingleShet Adjustment Summary 10 11 Margins and Tabs Margins Left margin Margins and pitches Right margin Both margins Horizontal tab usage Variable horizontal tabs Vertical tab usage Ordinary vertical tabs Vertical tab channels Summary Introduction to Dot Graphics Dots and Matrixes Print Head Graphics Mode Pin lt First Graphics Programs Straight line Slash eer ER Large caret Wave pattern Diamond pattern
61. match this print a listing and check it against Figure 12 3 162 100 LPRINT 27 1 590 FOR K 1 TO 6 600 LPRINT CHR 27 L CHR 60 CHR 0 610 READ N IF N 128 THEN 650 620 IF N gt 0 THEN LPRINT CHRS N GOTO 610 630READ P R FOR J 1 TO N LPRINT CHRS P CHRS R NEXT J 640 GOTO 610 650 LPRINT NEXT K LPRINT CHR 27 Q END 799 lt lt lt LOGO DATA gt gt gt 800 DATA 0 1 2 4 11 18 36 72 16 16 64 8 64 8 32 16 0 7 0 0 128 810 DATA 0 126 1 0 126 1 5 0 0 1 2 4 11 18 36 16 8 32 4 32 4 16 8 0 128 820 DATA 0 0 0 64 32 16 72 36 3 16 4 34 65 0 0 65 34 8 16 4 18 11 4 2 1 0 9 0 0 123 830 DATA 8 0 0 64 32 16 72 36 16 7 4 16 36 65 0 0 1 66 36 16 3 4 16 4 18 11 4 2 1 2 0 0 128 840 DATA 0 32 16 64 8 64 15 8 32 72 16 32 64 6 0 0 0 127 0 0 127 0 0 0 128 850 DATA 7 0 0 0 8 4 16 2 16 15 2 8 18 36 72 16 32 64 2 0 0 128 Figure 12 3 STRATA program We have you use this logo as part of a larger program in Chapter 17 Three D imensional Program Using a little imagination and creativity you can do a lot with dot graphics Take a look at the three dimensional design of Figure 12 4 which spells but the name of your favorite printer In this section we work through an FX 80 design if you own an FX 100 do not think that we have forgotten you As we go along we note which lines will differ for you and at the dose of the section we show you a complete FX 100 program
62. new right margin setting would have occurred on the wrong side of the current left margin which is still set at 10 Remember the FX simply ignores impossible settings Use a workable number to rese the right margin LPRINT CHR 27 Q CHR 22 Then RUN the program LEFT MARGIN LEFT MARGIN SET AT 10 RIGHT MARGIN WHERE Figure 9 5 Right margin set correctly As shown in Figure 9 5 all the characters get printed between columns 10 and 21 counting from 0 You can usethe right margin setting to increase your printing width in Compressed Mode on the FX 80 The default right margin in that mode is 132 which is slightly less than 8 inches If you se the right margin to 137 after giving the command for Compressed you get a full S inch print line You may also need a WIDTH statement see Appendix F 117 Both margins Notice that the left and right margin commands use different num bering systems In Pica Mode the left margin command counts from 0 to 79 while the right margin command counts from 1 to 80 Keep this difference in mind when you use the two commands together Another difference between the two margin commands is that the minimum left margin setting is 0 regardless of pitch but the mini mum right margin is the value of the left margin setting plus 2 in Pica 3in Elite or 4in Compressed The left and right margin commands can make a mess of your pro gram if you aren t aware of three more factors
63. normal character no more ESCape codes You would have a hard time getting anything done Codes that currently activate special modes or actions by the printer cannot be printed as normal characters These include 7 to 15 17 to 20 24 and 27 It is however possible to print the characters stored in these locations with the CHR 27 R command Here s how it works Suppose you choose to define the ASCII code 8 normally a backspace The CHR 27 amp command will work fine but printing CHR 8 still produces a backspace even after a CHRS 27 11 CHR 27 R totherescue CHR 27 lets you print the character stored in location 8 with another ASCII code The CHR 27 R transports the character to an easily printable location To find out what is stored where use Table 15 1 Table 15 1 International character locations 6 1 22 r 5 _ p 210 Find 8 in the table it is in the CHR 93 row under the Spain heading To print the character stored in 8 use 27 7 to aci vate the Spanish character set and print CHRS 93 Ole This same technique can be used to access any of the normally unprintable con trol codes Using an international character se while defining characters can be a two edged sword If you are currently using one of the international sets other than USA then defining any of the codes 35 36 64 91to 94 96 or 123 to 126 gets a bit tricky These cod
64. of form as shown at the end of this section e The friction control should remain toward the front of the printer as long as the tractor is used FX 80 and FX 100 friction feed The friction feed is for paper without pin feed holes Before using the friction feed on the FX 80 disengage the pin feeders by pulling the levers forward then move the feeders as far toward the edges as possible Remove the center protective lid if it is on If a tractor unit is installed on the top remove it Push both tractor unit release levers back one is shown close up in Figure 1 15 Rock the unit up and back pulling it gently toward the rear of the printer The tractor will come off easily you should not have to tug on the unit to remove it Tractor unit release lever Figure 1 15 Tractor unit release 28 Now follow these steps to load your paper into the friction feeder Be sure the printer is turned off Lift the front protective lid and move the print head to the middle of the platen refer back to Figure 1 12 Pull the paper bail up Engage the friction control mechanism by pushing the friction control lever to the back Guide the paper under the paper separator and the platen with your left hand while turning the manual feed knob with your right hand If you hear a crinkling noise stop This can result from the paper getting slightly wrinkled it is best to remove the paper and start over with an unwrinkled sheet Do not
65. our sample programs we use Microsoft BASIC which is widely used in personal computers Because there are several slightly different versions of Microsoft BASIC and because your computer iii may use a version of BASIC other than Microsoft you may need to modify some of the programs in this manual before they will run Appendix F offers help as do the next several paragraphs Methods for sending BASIC print and listing commands to the screen and to the printer vary widely We have used PRINT and LIST as the commands for the screen display and LPRINT and LLIST as commands for the printer You may have to change those to the form used by your system If for example your system uses the PR 1 and PR 0 commands you will need to change all instances of PRINT in our programs Since we use PRINT to report progress to your screen and that command does not affect the printing the easiest modification is to delete such PRINT statements For example 30 FOR D 1 TO 17 PRINT ROW D would become 39 FOR D 1 TO 17 because the only purpose of the PRINT statement is to display on the screen information that is not absolutely essential to the program Any BASIC system automatically provides a carriage return and some BASICs add a line feed after every program line that includes a PRINT or LPRINT command whether that line prints text or not To prevent the carriage return we have you place a semicolon at the end of such program lines You
66. output four fold without increasing the size of the array one iota How By using the array to plot one fourth of the cirde in memory then modi fying the array three times to generate the remaining three parts Fig ure 13 6 Figure 13 7 Divide and conquer Try this out with the current program Here are the changes you need to make to your current program in order to plot the lower right corner 30D SQR R 24C 2 40IF INT D 5 20 THEN A R C 1 OLPRINT 27 5 0 i 1 By moving the center of the cirde from 11 11 to 0 0 and increasing the radius from 10 to 20 you enlarge the figure 182 Reflections Once the desired image is stored in the array you can rotate and reflect it in several different directions It s all done with mirrors at least it looks like mirror reflections when you are done You create the mirror effect by reading the array in different directions Currently your program reads the array from left to right seven rows at a time but it is just as easy to read it in the reverse order Add this line 140 FOR C N TO 1 STEP 1 GOSUB 180 NEXT C and double the graphics width setting in line 130 130 LPRINT CHR 27 5 CHR 2 N CHRS 0 Now RUN it Theleft half of thefigure mirrors the right half With a few more changes the program can read the array upside down and double the output again Add these two lines 80B N E 7 S 1 90FOR
67. over perforation to the DIP switch setting 111 112 Chapter 9 Margins and Tabs At power up your FX contains specific default settings for margins and for horizontal and vertical tabs You can make changes to any of these Since it is best to change margins before tabs we discuss mar gins first then three aspects each of horizontal and vertical tabs Margins Most word processing programs have commands that let you set the left right margins If yours doesn t or if you ever need to change margins from a BASIC program the FX has just the thing margin control For Pica pitch the default margins are 80 characters for the FX 80 and 136 for the FX 100 You can change each margin separately to suit your needs Left margin If your word processor cannot control the left margin this com mand is the one you ve been waiting for The command for setting the FX s left margin uses the lowercase letter CHR 27 1 CHR n where n is the column number for your new left margin Use CHR I08 in place of the 1 if your system has trouble with lower case characters Here are the ground rules The allowed values for n on the FX 80 range from Oto 78for Pica Oto 93for Elite and Oto 133for Com pressed Mode On the FX 100 the ranges are 0 to 134 for Pica O to 160 for Elite and 0 to 229 for Compressed The printer ignores all invalid settings such as those greater than the current page width New mar gin settings go into eff
68. perforation and the printhead is the same on both models of the printer as you can see in Figure 1 19 You need to leave some paper above the ribbon so that the paper moves up smoothly When you have the position set lower the bail and replace or repo sition the lids or cover Although you have arranged the paper correctly you are not done The printer will not recognize the top of form until the next time you turn it on The FX considers a form to be 66 lines long unless you change this length as discussed in Chapter 8 Paper thickness lever The paper thickness lever shown in Figure 1 20 moves the print head to accommodate various paper thicknesses The factory sets it for ordinary paper which is 1 500th of an inch thick but you can adjust it for printing one original and up to two copies For thick paper or multiple copies move it toward the front Do not usethe extreme rear setting however This position is used for head alignment and will shorten the life of the print head if used in normal operation Starting Up It is finally time to connect the printer to the computer remember that some computers need interface kits and all need cables First make sure the power switch is off Connect the printer end of the printer cable to the connector at the right rear of the FX as shown in Figure 32 Figure 1 19 Top of form 1 21 The other end of the cable plugs into your computer If your cable includes grounding wires b
69. pressed M ode CH R 15 in line 20 but its program masked that command as long as Elite was in effect 55 Don t takethis lesson lightly it is a good example of how print modes interact on FX printers Pitch Mode Combinations The previous three modes can t be mixed but the next mode can be used in combination with any one of them And you can add it to a printout for either of two durations for one print line or for a longer passage Expanded M ode Expanded Mode doubles the width of the current pitch mode Since it can be combined with all previous pitches Expanded Mode doubles the number of available print pitches to six You can turn on the Expanded print feature for either of two dura tions If you activate it with CHR 14 it turns off after each print line If you want Expanded Mode to stay on line after line continu ously you activate it with ESCape W followed by 1 Also notice that ESCape W CHR 1 is turned off with ESCape W CHR 0 CHR 14 on the other hand can be turned off either with CHR 20 or with ESCape W 0 To see Expanded characters type in NEW 10 LPRINT CHRS 14 EXPANDED PRINT 20 LPRINT TURNS OFF AFTER EACH LINE WITH CHR 14 30 LPRINT CHR 27 1 EXPANDED PRINT STAYS oN 56 40LPRINT CONTINUOUSLY WITH ESCAPE W 50 LPRINT 27 W CHRS 0 ESF ASE D FR CNET TURNS GFF AFTER EACH LINE WITH 14 ES
70. pull on the paper as it comes up from the platen leave the friction feeder in charge Push the paper bail back against the paper dose the front protective lid and reinstall the center protective lid You are now ready to set the top of form as shown at the end of this section There is one more point to consider if you are printing on single sheets of paper DIP switch 1 3 is set to active at the factory and this means that the paper out feature will sound the FX s beeper and halt printing whenever it senses the bottom of your sheet of paper In prac tice this means that without deactivating the sensor you won t be able to print on the bottom of a single sheet of paper You can usually deactivate the paper out sensor easily by changing switch 1 3 Some computer systems however ignore the setting of DIP switch 1 3 See Appendix F FX 80 and FX 100 removable tractor unit optional on the FX 80 The removable tractor will accommodate pin feed paper in any width from four inches to the width of the platen To install the optional tractor unit on the FX 80 begin by removing the center protective lid if it is on Move the built in pin feeders as far as possible to the right To add the tractor unit to either the FX 80 or the FX 100 hold the tractor unit over the printer with the gears to your right as shown in Figure 1 16 Lower the rear hooks over the rear studs as shown in Figure 1 17 pushing the unit back against the studs to en
71. sequence line 10 above as a command to switch from Roman to Italic characters The LPRINT in line 20 sends a string of characters to the printer to verify that the printer is in Italic Mode Now type LLIST or your system s version of the print LIST command to check the printer s status as in Figure 2 1 10 LPRINT CHR 27 CHR 52 20 LPRINT ITALIC CHARACTER SET Figure 2 1 Italic listing Since all the text is still printed in Italic characters you can see that this mode stays on until it is turned off This is typical of the modes on FX printers nearly all modes stay on until turned off We will alert you to the few exceptions If your printer is printing one line on top of another or if it is double spacing you need to change the setting of the FX s DIP switch 2 4 43 Change Commands After you have sent commands to the printer you will often want to change them either to turn off one or more modes or to erase text To understand what happens when you use one of the several FX methods of making changes you need to know about two special aspects of the printer defaults and the printer buffer We often talk in these pages about resetting the printer to its defaults By defaults we mean the settings that are in effect whenever you turn the printer on The printer has default settings for such fea tures as the size of a line the size of a page and the print mode or mode combination that is in effect se
72. set absolutely Although you changed the pitch to Compressed in line 60 which changed the width of char acters and spaces the width of the tab did not change You will need to keep both these factors in mind as you use tabs Vertical tab usage You use vertical tabs much as you do horizontal ones With the vertical tab code CHR II you move from tab to tab You can use 122 the default vertical tabs which are set for every other line or you can set tabs in one of two ways in a single set or for forms in up to 8 sets called channels Ordinary vertical tabs Most often you probably will only need one series of vertical tabs You set them with ESCape B in this format CHR 27 B CHR S n CHR n CHR 0 where n to n represent up to 16 numbers that specify the lines that get tab stops The process is terminated by CH R O If your system won t send 0 use any number lower than The allowable range of tab settings in the ESCape B sequence is 1 to 255 but a number greater than the current form length is ignored Therefore you would use a setting as large as 255 only when the line spacing is less than three dots 3 72 inch Because the top line of a page is line 0 you can set tabs at line 1 through 65 with the default form feed of 66 lines You can set up all the tabs you ll need for a form without having to use all of them at once Here for example is the beginning of a pro gram that will result in a
73. so did the graphics density It was your use of the command that allowed you to use the variable Suppose you had used the K command instead You could use the reassigning code to make it work as though it were To see this work enter the following lines for your current program 151 CHR 27 K CHRS 20 AS CHRS 27 K CHRS 1201 CHRS 0 151 You should ge another printout of Figure 11 4 A second time you can make good use of the reassigning code occurs when you want to change a program in which you have not concatenated the graphics codes Using the sequence allows you to change every instance of your graphics command by entering only one line A third type of use occurs when you want to use a program devd oped for a different model of Epson printer Suppose you have a pro gram for circles written for an MX that uses Double Density the L variety and you want to refine it by switching to the one to one aspect ratio In this case you would usethe following line at the beginning of your program LPRINT CHR 27 L CHR 5 and the FX will do the rest Nine Pin Graphics M ode Recall that in the last chapter we said that the bottom zero pin of the print head is not normally used in the Graphics Modes That s because most microcomputers communicate with parallel type peripheral devices using eight data lines even if they have 16 bit proc essors When the peripheral is a printer each da
74. sweep of the head prints eight or fewer dots depending on your computer System and your specifications see Figure 10 1 Seven bit systems can control only the middle seven pins Because we want users of such systems to be able to use these programs we rarely put the top pin to work in the programs that follow When we do we tell you so 132 Decimal 7 bit computers can t reach top pin Figure 10 1 Pins numbered sequentially Each time the print head makes a horizontal pass it prints a pattern of dots To print figures taller than 7 or 8 dots the print head must make more than one sweep If you use the 12 dot default line spac ing the print head will leave gaps between the graphics lines just as it does between text lines To avoid such gaps in your pattern adjust the line spacing to 7 or 8 dot and print consecutive lines until the figure is complete Figure 10 2 shows a before and after example we work with this pattern later Twelve dot line spacing Seven dot line spacing Figure 10 2 Dot pattern in two line spacings 133 Each pass of the print head contains one piece of the total pattern which can be as tall or short as you desire You don t haveto use the whole page or even an entire line for your graphics figures In fact you can reserve as little or as much space as you like for a figure and position it anywhere on the page Graphics Mode Multi line figures are printed in lines that are either se
75. t look much like ours it s likely the problem involves the codes from nine to 13 Remember that the program deter mined the dot patterns to send to the printer by the figure stored in the array The deanest way to get the figure to print correctly is to either POKE the codes directly or use a printer driver that allows the codes to pass through as sent See Appendix F If neither is possible there is a third way You can avoid these codes during printing without doing too much damage to the figure The test 180 below picks off any potential problem codes and changes them to less dangerous numbers 210 IF F gt 8 AND F 14 THEN F F 5 This line takes any number between 8 and 14 and subtracts 5 from it putting it out of the trouble range Adjust this test to fit your system You may see another problem with the figure The standard 7 dot line spacing may be off just enough to add a slight gap every seven rows An easy fix for this is to adjust the line spacing as needed with the CHR 27 3 command This gives you the ability to make adjustments as fine as one third of a dot For example in this program you can set a 6 2 3 dot line spacing by changing line 70 to 70 LPRINT 27 20 CHR 7 Higher resolution If everything did go according to plan your printed figure resem bles a drde of radius 10 dots but the resolution isn t all that you might hope for For one thing the individual dots are clearly visib
76. than CHR 27 D CHR n CHR n CHR n CHR 0 Sets horizontal tabs at columns n n Terminates with CHR 0 or any number less than n CHR 27 b CHR N CHR n CH R n CHR n CHRS l sets the vertical channel number N 2 0 7 0 is the same as CHR 27 B CHR 27 CHR n Selects channel n 129 130 Chapter 10 Introduction to Dot Graphics Welcome to the world of Epson graphics To get you off to a solid start we use this chapter to discuss all the fundamentals of dot graphics from the number of dots per page to the way to position one dot before we show you several patterns that you can print by using one dot at a time Dots and Matrixes Imagine the blank printout page as a huge canvas that is made up of a series of dot matrixes You can usethis page like an artist s canvas to create your own graphic images Where the painter uses brush and paint you will usethe computer and printer to express your artistic ideas Think of the page as a series of matrixes For an FX 80 page and Pica characters for example you can calculate the number of main col umns across a page by multiplying 80 matrixes wide X 6 columns per matrix 480 dots per row Then you can calculate the numbers of rows down a page by multi plying 66 lines per page X 12 dots high per line 792 dots per column 131 A final multiplication 480 main columns X 792 rows gives you a grand total of 380 160 dot positio
77. the headings FT a flag that allows a horizontal tab to adjust the left margin of the box 999 REM The End In this chapter we developed a program that uses many of the fea tures of the FX printer The program demonstrates the tremendous potential of the powerful tool you have at your beck and call We hope it inspires you to use the FX printer in many creative ways to enhance your own programming applications 238 INDEX Note Refer to Table of Contents and List of Figures for specific programs Also the chapter summaries are not indexed A Accessories American Standard Code for Information Interchange See ASCII Apostrophe See REMarks Apple II computers 312 313 See also Seven bit systems Arrays 189 193 DIMensioning Arrow See Exponent character ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange 38 40 42 codes listed for all characters 253 270 See also International character set Attribute byte See User defined characters Automatic test See Test b See Blank space Backspace 81 83 CHR 8 produces it Bail See Paper bail Barchart 227 231 BASIC program listings 322 Beeper 41 42 304 305 CHR 7 sounds beeper Bidirectional printing See Unidirectional Mode Bit high order 310 311 ESCape gt turns it on ESCape turns it off ESCape accepts eighth bit as is from the computer See also Seven bit systems Blank space v Board serial and interface See Interface Bold prin
78. the tractor unit As you unpack your printer you may want to save all protective plastic paper and cardboard to use in the future for repacking Figure 1 2 displays with labels the parts of each model that we discuss in this chapter 13 Paper separator A Protective cartridge Handle Paper separator Protective lids for use with lt 2 yi friction teed ful Ribbon Handle cartridge mantal feed knob is not attached to the printer when It is shipped Figure 1 1 The FX 80 and FX 100 printers FX 80 Computer printer cable Power cord Paper separator as HAN EEN eed knob e q 3 Friction control B Benue lever Paper thickness lever Control panel Print head Pin feed lever Tractor unit release lever Tractor unit Paper bail Figure 1 2 Printer parts Additional Supplies and Accessories The following items may be purchased separately from your Epson dealer Printer cable or interface kit Each computer system has its own way of connecting to a printer Some computers need a cable only others require both a cable and board The FX printers use the Centronics standard parallel interface scheme described in Appendix K If your computer expects to communicate through a serial rather than through a parallel interface you must purchase a serial board for your FX Your Epson dealer stocks a variety of FX interf
79. to work This manual can help you use one or all of them Inside the Printer The FX printers contain two kinds of internal memory ROM Read Only Memory and RAM Random Access M emory There are 12K bytes approximately 12 000 characters of ROM This unchangeable memory contains all the logic required for the various print features as well as the patterns for all the built in character sets The FX also contains a RAM memory buffer that stores up to 2K bytes of text and printer commands as they are received from the com puter This frees your computer so that you can continue working while the FX is printing You can also use RAM another way you can define your own set of characters and then store them in RAM so that you can print them at will It is always tempting though not always wise to start playing with a new printer the instant it is out of the box Because the FX is a sophis ticated piece of equipment it is important that you understand what the printer will do and how to operate it before you start printing Inside This Manual This manual will guide you on a carefully planned tour of the vari ous features of the FX printers In these pages you can learn how to use your computer to control the printer for a large variety of applica tions 2 You can use this manual as a reference a tutorial study guide or Some combination of the two For those of you who want to use the printer for one simple applica tion
80. try to print two consecutive dots the printer simply ignores the second one see Figure 11 1 146 Pattern 0000 Overlapping dots Prints as OC In anode High Spee Figure 11 1 High Speed Double Density dots To check this out change the pin patterns in line 30 from 85 to 127 the sum of the labels for pins 1 through 7 30 BS CHR 127 CHRS 42 As Figure 11 2 shows the repeated dots the ones called for by the CH R 42 pins 2 4 and 6 are not printed at all The print head is moving too fast to retract the pins and then instantly fire them again so the FX s program suppresses them 4 4 yocp ck sa aa d da a PIS PIS TP TS ak 127 127 HIGH SFEED DOUBLE DENSITY GRAPHICS Figure 77 2 No overlapping dots 147 Low Speed Double D ensity Graphics M ode Ah but the FX has a special print mode to take care of this very problem It s called the Low Speed Double Density Graphics Mode Change the 2 of line 20to a 1 and change the text in line 50 once more 20 AS CHRS 27 CHRS 1 CHRS 50 CHRS 0 50 LPRINT PLOW SPEED DOUBLE DENSITY GRAPHICS Take note of the print speed when you RUN your program this time It s the same density as the previous mode but printed at half the speed As you can see Figure 11 3 from looking very carefully at your printout this time the CHR 42 columns are printed as requested
81. will see this technique throughout the manual A few versions of BASIC use semicolons between any two control codes that fall on one program line as in LPRINT 27 CHRS 52 If you use such a version of BASIC you will need to add semicolons as appropriate After the ESCape code CHR 27 the FX always expects an other code The second code tells the printer which mode to turn on or off and you may enter it in either of two formats One format is like the ESCape code you use a number in parentheses after CHR such as The other format is shorter since it uses only an alphanu meric symbol within quotation marks such as E or g We usually use the latter format This format allows you to shorten a program line by combining a command and its print string In the case of Double Strike for in stance the quoted letter turns the mode on and turns it off To see how combining the code with a print string works compare 10 LPRINT CHR 27 G DOUBLE STRIKE PRINT with 10 LPRINT CHR 27 GDOUBLE STRIKE PRINT The second program line may look peculiar but it gives the same output that the first version does The G is not printed on the paper instead it is interpreted by the printer as part of the ESCape sequence In long programs with DATA statements or subroutines we use END after the line that is executed last but older BASIC systems re quire the use of STOP at such points If yours
82. your Graphics command strings in one short character string that will not be difficult You can simply change the mode number or alternate code in the definition of the character string In the program for Figure 11 4 for example you did this in line 20 by storing the Graphics Mode command sequence in A and making 150 Table 11 1 Graphics Modes Alternate Head speed Mode Densit code Description in sec 0 Single CHR 27 K 60 dots per inch 16 480 dots per 8 line 816 dots per 13 6 line 1 Low Speed CHR 27 L 120 dots per inch 8 Double 960 dots per 8 line 1632 dots per 13 6 line High Speed CHR 27 Y Same density as 16 Double Mode 1 but faster The printer does not print consecutive dots in any one row Quadruple CHR 27 Z 240 dots per inch 8 1920 dots per 8 line 3 3264 dots per 13 6 line The printer does not print consecutive dots in any one row Epson none Matches the screen 8 QX 10 density of the QX 10 80 dots per inch 4 640 dots per 8 iine 1088 dots per 13 6 line This makes it easv to do screen dumps One to one none 72 dots per inch 12 plotter 576 dots per 8 line 979 dots per 13 6 line Produces the same density horizontally as vertically which makes circles look round Other CRT none 90 dots per inch 8 Screens 720 dots per 8 line 1224 dots per 13 6 line Matches the Corvus Concept and DEC Screens the mode number a variable M As M varied
83. your program 35 LPRINT PROTECTED TEXT 50 LPRINT THIS WILL NOT PRINT and RUN it once In general you need to remember that the Reset Code doesn t affect graphics data but it may affect companion text Graphics and low ASCII codes Sending the codes between zero and 31 from BASIC can be a prob lem when you are printing graphics just as it is when you are printing text The problem again is that most computer systems handle some of these codes in a special way instead of delivering them to the printer For example one computer system handles form feeds by itself It counts lines to keep track of the top of form If a program sends the CHR command with the number that ASCII designates as the code 144 for form feed CH R 12 to the printer the computer system inter Gepts it and sends instead a series of line feeds CH RS 10 It does this whether the CHR commands represent true commands parameters for commands or data It screens out all instances of its reserved numbers Y ou can see how this could upset the printing of graphics In this example you would get pins 2 and 4 whose sum is 10 when you wanted pins 3 and 4 whose sum is 12 Does this mean that if your computer system transmutes some con trol codes you can t use the pin patterns of those numbers in your graphics programs Well yes it does At least not via the usual CH R function But you can often design around these problems by using other
84. 00 DATA 1 64 0 124 2 68 8 120 0 64 0 Here s the printing routine 100 AS INPUT ENTER A STRING gf AS IF AS THEN 180 10 INPUT ENTER A MASTER PRINT MODE NUMBER p M 120 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS M 130 FOR Y 0 TO 1 FOR X 1 TO LEN A 140 A ASC MIDS A X 1 128 Y 150 LPRINT CHRS A 32 160 NEXT X LPRINT NEXT Y 170 LPRINT Some BASIC systems do not support the MID statement instead they use subscripts to isolate portions of a string To designate the 219 characters in positions 6 and 7 of string A for example MID A 6 2 would be coded as A 6 7 If your system uses this scheme change line 140 to 140 A ASC AS 128 This program automatically prints all four parts of each letter You typejust a single letter it does the rest Before you RUN check it against Figure 16 3 0 LPRINT 27 1 27 01 0 LPRINT CHR 27 CHR 0 CHRS 0 CHR 0 LPRINT CHR 27 CHR 1 CHRS 0 0 READ 1 PRINT CHR L 0 FOR 0 TO 1 FOR 7 0 TO 1 A L4128 Y432 2 0 LPRINT CHR 27 amp CHR 0 0 LPRINT CHR 139 0 FOR 1 TO 11 READ LPRINT CHRS N NEXT X E NEXT Y PUT ENTER A STRING p AS THEN 180 T ENTER A MASTER PRINT MODE NUMBER M T CHR 27 CHRS M y 0 To 1 For 1 TO LEN AS D A X 1 128 Y T A432 X LPRINT NEXT Y CO 1 gt UJ
85. 05 compared to ROM characters 199 control codes as characters 208 211 DIP switch setting for 200 double high and double wide 215 223 downloading Reset code with 207 troubleshooting 303 Vertical tabs See Tabs vertical 250 Width of characters 256 270 statements 313 314 Word processing 36 321 322 Zero slashed 251
86. 055050 16634652 240 DATA 45621663 05055050 250 DATA 04656630 00043000 Figure 16 9 Interlace Have fun creating your own designs with these characters You may wish to SAVE the program before proceeding Line Graphics The RX series printers have a set of line graphics characters stored in ROM In the following program we define a similar set What are line graphics characters They are a se of characters that fit together to make borders and outlines for all kinds of forms Since they are so useful we use them again in the next chapter be sure to save the next program when you are through entering it We will add to the program that you built and saved as STRATA in the last chapter LOAD in the STRATA program and delete lines 180 and 190 Then add these lines 130 LPRINT 27 amp 0 al 140 FOR 1 TO 12 LPRINT CHR 139 170 LPRINT abcdefghijk 1 Remember if your computer cannot send lowercase letters use the ASCII values for the letters you need See Appendix A Add 899 lt lt lt LINE GRAPHICS AND SHADING gt gt gt 900 DATA 0 0 0 0 15 0 8 0 8 0 8 a 910 DATA 8 0 8 0 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 b 920 DATA 8 0 8 0 120 0 0 0 0 0 0 c 930 DATA 0 0 0 0 120 0 8 0 8 0 8 d 940 DATA 8 0 8 0 120 0 8 0 8 0 8 e 950 DATA 8 0 8 0 15 0 8 0 8 0 8 960 DATA 0 0 0 0 127 0 8 0 8 0 8 g 225 970 DATA 8 0 8 0 127 0 0 020 0 02 h 980 DATA 8 0 8 0 127 0 8 0
87. 1 If this spacing produces slight gaps between rows adjust it with CHR 27 3 CHR 20 The length of the array depends entirely on the variables in line 20 The following lines adjust the pin patterns and PO for the last pass of the print head if the array length is not a multiple of seven Add 130 LAST INT C 7 R C 7 LAST 150 H 6 IF PASS LAST THEN H R 1 On the last pass R represents the number of pins used and H is set to one less than the number of pins to be fired 192 Graphics Width Settings The required graphics width is C the size of the array If however C is greater than 255 the value n in the graphics entry string must change from zero to one With this in mind add these three lines 200 N1 C N2 0 210 IF gt 255 THEN 256 N2 1 220 LPRINT CHR 27 CHR 5 1 N2 Introduced in Chapter 11 CHR 27 CHR 5 is the one to one graphics density setting It ensures a printout image that is square If your computer system requires a WIDTH statement to prevent the printer from issuing a carriage return before the graphics line is complete add it now 7 WIDTH LPRINT 255 The format for this statement may be different for your BASIC see your software documentation Pattern Printout Now that you ve completed the groundwork add the lines that actually print the pattern 230 FOR 1 TO C 240 IF A K 1 THEN LPRINT 250 IF A K lt gt 1 THEN LP
88. 1 1 DIP switch functions Switch 1 N 0 Function OFF 1 8 ON International character OFF 17 ON International character OFF 1 6 ON International character OFF 1 5 Emphasized Print weight Single strike User defined 1 4 2K buffer RAM memory characters 1 3 Inactive Paper out sensor Active 1 2 0 slashed Zero character 0 1 1 Compressed Print pitch Pica L Switch 2 No ON Function OFF 24 CR LF Automatic line feed CR only 2 3 ON Skip over perforation feature OFF 2 2 Sounds Beeper Mute 2 1 Active Printer select Inactive Note The shaded boxes show the factory settings Some computer interfaces automatically send a line feed code to the printer at the end of each print line Other interfaces send only a carriage return which returns the print head to its left most position and rely on the printer to perform the automatic line feed Switch 2 4 enables the FX to match either requirement With switch 2 4 on the printer automatically adds a line feed to every carriage return it receives from the computer with the switch off it expects the com puter to provide the line feed If you are not sure what your system requires leave the switch the way you find it but remember that you can adjust this if your first printing occurs either all on one line or with the lines spaces twice as far apart as you requested We recommend two changes now Turning switch 1 2 on adds a slash to the zero character which makes program li
89. 10 4 6 15 7 14 5 3 12 3 3 1 280 DATA 3 20 9 6 5 15 5 5 6 5 3 3 12 3 3 1 167 290 DATA 3 3 25 3 0 3 25 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 300 DATA 3 3 24 3 2 3 24 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 310 DATA 3 3 23 3 4 3 23 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 L 320 DATA 3 3 22 3 6 3 22 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 330 DATA 3 3 21 3 8 3 21 5 8 5 2 5 8 5 3 1 340 DATA 3 3 20 3 10 3 21 18 4 18 4 1 350 DATA 3 3 19 3 12 3 22 14 8 14 6 1 Yes indeed high resolution graphics does require a large amount of data Okay now RUN the program Figure 12 5 FX 80 figure Success In your printout which should look like Figure 12 5 can you see the 3D effect of the letters The modifications to follow will make the letters easier to read TypeLLIST to see what you ve got up to this point It should match Figure 12 6 Figure 12 7 shows the printout and Figure 12 8 shows the listing for the FX 100 WIDTH LPRINT 255 0 LPRINT CHR 27 1 0 GS CHR 27 L CHR 51 3 GOSUB 160 0 FOR 1 TO 17 PRINT ROW D 0 LPRINT G 0 READ L H 0 L L 7 H H 7 0 IF L 0 THEN 90 80 FOR 1 TO L LPRINT CHR 1 NEXT X 90 IF H 0 LPRINT GOTO 140 Figure 12 6 Program for FX 80 figure BUNBEN 168 ee Ur 2221 a ur C3 gt lt OMM 1 c eo e 000005700 T
90. 241 ESCape CHR 27 42 43 format for commands iv v 46 47 57 58 listed by function 283 286 listed by number 271 281 See also specific modes or functions ESCape Master Select See Master Select ESCape Accepts eighth bit as is from computer See Bit high order ESCape CHR n CHR n Selects a character set See User defined characters ESCape amp 5 Selects characters to be defined See User defined characters ESCape CHR m CHR n Selects Graphics Mode density m See Graphics Mode ESCape 0 Turns Underline Mode off See Underline Mode ESCape 1 Turns Underline Mode on See Underline Mode ESCape Selects channel See Tabs vertical ESCape 0 Sets line spacing to 1 8 See Line spacing ESCape 1 Sets line spacing to 7 72 See Line spacing ESCape 24 Sets line spacing to 1 6 See Line spacing ESCape 3 CHR n Sets line spacing to 1 216 See Line spacing ESCape 4 Turns Italic Mode on See Italic Mode ESCape 5 Turns Italic Mode off See Italic Mode ESCape 6 Enables printing of control codes 128 159 See User defined characters ESCape 7 Returns codes 128 159 to control codes See User defined characters ESCape 87 Turns paper out sensor off See Paper out sensor ESCape 9 Turns paper out sensor on See Paper out sensor ESCape CHR n CHRS n CHR n Copies
91. 26 and 160 to 254 may not be large enough to accommodate all the characters you want Perhaps you have a passion for Egyptian hieroglyphics or maybe you need a complete set of mathematics symbols And what about the entire Japanese character set it has some 4000 symbols If you get carried away with user defined characters you may end up searching for more storage Anticipating this need Epson provides commands that will allow you to define and print certain control codes in the same way that you treat other characters Remember that the low order control codes are the ASCII codes 0 through 31 plus 127 and the high order control codes are 128 through 159 plus 255 These codes do not normally print symbols on paper rather they cause the printer to change modes To make them print as normal symbols requires an extra command For example the command to normalize the high order control codes is LPRINT CHR 27 6 208 Let s use this command to see how the ROM control codes can print Add 2 LPRINT 27 6 4FOR 128 TO 159 LPRINT CHRS X NEXT X 6 LPRINT CHR 27 7 8 STOP aeuoi fp LR5SRAaCSRExODS AGUAGUEEY That s where the international characters Italic version have been stored So the CHR 27 6 command without the CHRS 27 R gives you access to the international characters The CHR 27 7 turns these characters back into control codes See how the CHR 27 6 and CHR 27 7 commands work with
92. 27 2 Compare Figure 7 3 to Figure 7 2 In the ESCape A program of Figure 7 2 the FX prints STAIR and STEPS on the same line and performs the variable line feed at the end of the line In the ESCape J program of Figure 7 3 the FX first performs a line feed without a carriage return between the strings see how STEPS begins to sag below STAIR and then a standard 12 dot line feed plus carriage return at the end of each line To summarize the ESCape J does not require a shut off code as the other line feed control codes do the FX executes it once then forgets it Another difference between this line spacing command and the others is that this one does its work without performing a carriage return the print head does not move to the left margin Reverse feed FX 80 only The FX 80 has another one time immediate line feed the reverse feed It operates the same way that ESCape J does as its code sug gests ESCape j The only difference is that reverse feed moves the print head back up the paper it actually moves the paper but the effect is of the print head moving The following program lets you watch ESCape j in action When you RUN it the FX 80 will first 99 STAIRSTEPS STAIRSTEPS STAIRSTEPS STAIRGTEFS STAIRSTEPS STAIRS TERS STAIRSTEFS STAIRSiEpg STAIB GEPS STRIS TER STAIR eng STAIR STAIR EPS STAIR TERS STAIR STEPS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEFS STA
93. 30 LPRINT ABCDEF ABCDEF These letters are very heavy looking To carry this idea to an extrene increase the upper limit of the loop to 10 or 15 The ability to adjust line spacing in increments of 1 216 inch gives you tremendous control in your vertical formatting You can use this control to fine tune your graphics printouts If the 7 dot line spacing leaves gaps in the figures just tighten it up by changing it to 6 2 3 dot 20 216 inch 27 3 CHRS 20 Well use this technique in a later chapter Line Feeds Besides being able to change the size of line spaces you can change other aspects of a line feed You can send it immediately and for one line only or you can send it as above as a continuous feature And if you are using an FX 80 you can send a reverse line feed to make the print head move back up the page 98 One time immediate line feed The FX has a special line feed that executes a new size of line feed once then reverts back to the size of the previous line feed And that s not all it is executed immediately rather than at the end of the print line as all the other line spacing commands are The format is LPRINT 27 J CHRS n where n represents a distance of from zero to 255 216 inch Put this one to the same test you gave the ESCape A command with the following program 20 FOR X 10 TO 30 30 LPRINT TAB X STAIR CHRS 27 J CHRS X STEPS 40 NEXT X 50 LPRINT CHR
94. 5 A and c be 69 E Any of the keyboard characters can be redefined in a similar manner For example defining as 97 and 5 101 selects lowercase letters a through e defining cas 33 and cas 43 selects the symbols through To simplify things a bit the ASCII symbols can be used in place of CHR c and For example either LPRINT CHRS 27 amp CHRS 0 CHR 65 CHRS 69 Or LPRINT CHR 27 amp CHRS 0 AE selects characters A through E On some occasions you may wish to define only one character That s O K too Just use the same number or letter for c and 130 LPRINT CHR 27 amp CHRS 0 EE 200 The semicolon is very important The CHR 27 amp sequence expects more data to follow just as Graphics Mode does The semicolon at the end of the line prevents an unwanted carriage return code from disrupting the data For each character to be defined determined by c and the printer expects 12 data numbers to follow The first of these numbers is called the attribute byte It determines some special attributes or characteristics of the character being defined The next 11 numbers contain the dot patterns of the symbol being defined nothing fancy just 11standard graphics pin patterns Design The first step in defining a new character is to lay out the dot pat tern Check Appendix A to see how the ROM characters are designed Your characters share the same limitations as those f
95. 6 15 2 8 18 36 72 16 32 64 2 4 0 128 1299 lt lt lt BOX DATA gt gt gt 1300 DATA a j f b k g k k g ji h k p k k j e c 1310 DATA 11 8 W ACCOUNT NO DATE 1320 DATA 1 54 pn ny ier 1330 DATA 11 11 20 8 8 15 DATE INVOICE NO 9 gt 1340 DATA DESCRIPTION CHARGES PAYMENTS BALANCE 1350 DAT 7 07 f 3 np 11111 1 p ny k ny 5e j DATA 22 11 11 12 18 DATA CURRENT 30 DAYS 60 DAYS 90 DAYS AMOUNT DUE Figure 174 Program for STATEMENT concluded You may prefer to work out what each line does on your own three cheers if you do But if you want a little guidance here is a brief program overview followed by a line by line description of the main portion of the program STATEMENT breaks down into several large blocks of routines and data Lines Routine 100 150 Defines characters and does housekeeping 160 390 Prints the statement form 500 660 The box subroutine 700 770 The logo subroutine 800 The STRING subroutine 900 1010 Data for line graphics 1100 1170 Data for the STRATA SOFTWARE letters 1200 1250 Data for the logo 1300 1370 Data for the box routine Line 170 prints STRATA SOFTWARE using Master Select to define the mode Lines 180 and 190 set vertical and horizontal tab stops Line 200 stores the tab command in H and prints STATEMENT in Expanded print
96. 7 1 320 LPRINT H H B 4 H5 H5 H5 HS 325 NT H H B k H5 H H5 H5 33 T H H j d A j GOSUB 800 LPRINT c 335 L LPRINT 340 LPR C H H H WJAN H WIFEB H MAR LPRINT 390 LPRINT CHR 27 END 799 STRINGS ROUTINE 800 FOR 2 1 TO LPRINT A NEXT J RETURN 899 lt lt lt LINE GRAPHICS AND SHADING gt gt gt 900 DATA 0 0 0 0 15 0 8 0 8 0 8 910 DATA 8 0 8 0 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 b 920 DATA 8 0 8 0 120 0 0 0 0 0 0 930 DATA 0 0 0 0 120 0 8 0 8 0 8 940 DATA 8 0 8 0 120 0 8 0 8 0 8 950 DATA 8 0 8 0 15 0 8 0 8 0 8 f 960 DATA 0 0 0 0 127 0 8 0 8 0 8 9 970 DATA 8 0 8 0 127 0 0 0 0 0 0 h 980 para 8 0 8 0 127 0 8 0 8 0 8 i 990 DATA 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 0 8 7 1000 DATA 0 0 0 0 127 0 0 0 0 0 0 1010 DATA 84 0 170 0 84 0 170 0 84 0 170 1 Figure 17 2 Program for BARCHART concluded Statement Form For the last application of this manual you will produce for a hypothetical business Strata Software the statement form that is shown as Figure 17 3 Feel free to adapt the form or any of its elements to your own purposes Do you recognize figures from previous chapters within this form We have you use the logo we developed in Chapter 12 user defined characters from Chapter 1 5 and line graphics characters from Chap ter 16 By combining figures from previous chapters with new mate
97. AS CHRS 27 10 LPRINT 4 30 LPRINT AS 5 This technique can help if you use the ESCape code frequently If you use a certain ESCape sequence often in a program you can store it in a character string as shown in this example 5 BS CHR 27 4 10 LPRINT BS Note that in this case you must use a plus sign between the elements of the ESCape sequence Summary You use CHR to send numeric codes from BASIC and you use CHR4 27 the ESCape code to earmark the printing or action to occur on the FX printer You turn on an FX mode by using the ESCape code and adding to it either the character string command and an appropriate FX control code or else the ASCII equivalent of the con trol code enclosed by quotation marks Nearly all printer modes stay active until they are turned off we cover the exceptions later You can turn off one printer mode or set of modes by shutting the printer off or by sending the Rese Code either of which resets the FX to its default modes In addition each mode has its own cancelling code that turns off only that particular mode You can delete all the text characters in the FX s buffer by using the CAN cel code or the latest text character by using the DEL ete code Neither affects the control codes 4 See the Preface for a list of the conventions used in this manual Appendix A for a table of the ASCII codes and Appendixes B and C for tables of the control codes Appendix F offers programming so
98. D COMPRESSED ABE COPS ast ABC SABE ATS APT ane ABC 285 Ane MIRESEI PSIE ap me AB mom 2 m AB cT um sad quud Z S 214801 Here are the commands that we introduced in this chapter CHR 27 1 Turns Underline Mode ON CHR 27 0 Turns Underline OFF CHR 27 S1 Turns Subscript Mode ON Script characters print in Double Strike and at half speed CHR 27 SO Turns Superscript ON CHR 27 T Turns either version of Script Mode OFF CHR 27 4 Turns Italic Mode ON CHR 27 5 Turns Italic OFF CHR 27 CHR n or CHR 27 n Selects one of the 16 Master Select combina tions where n stands for a number between 0 and 255 79 80 Chapter 6 Special Printing Features In this chapter you ll discover several new features that will enhance your control over the printer Backspacing for example allows you to combine characters You can use a set of software commands to switch in and out of international character sets and you can control the speed of printing Backspace The backspace function is handy for making overstrikes Because it moves the print head backward one character you can print two characters in one print position You can also shift the print head slightly to print offsets You activate backspace by typing a CHR 8 between the two characters Overstrikes Typically backspace is used for single character overstrikes Here are a few examples that create some useful mathematical s
99. EPSON This new mode automatically turns off Compressed 220 Sets Superscript Mode Escape 50 returns to normal print Escape g prints INC in Superscript then cancels Script Mode then prints borders 230 Prints another line of borders then sets Master Select with ESCape Q giving Double Strike Elite 240 Prints GENERAL ADMISSION resets the FX to its defaults and prints right borders 250 Prints the outside borders and the bottom of the inside border 260 Prints the outside borders and sets line spacing to 1 72 inch 270 Prints the bottom of the outside border 11 280 Returns the printer to its defaults 300 330 Provides data for the FX letters as user defined characters 0 3 350 410 Provides data for the ticket borders 12 Chapter 1 The FX Printers Once you ve unpacked your new printer the first thing you should do is make sure you have all of the parts With the FX 80 or FX 100 printer you should receive the items shown in Figure 1 1 1 The printer itself 2 A manual feed knob 3 A paper separator 4 Two protective lids 5 One ribbon cartridge in a box 6 This FX Series Printer User s Manual The FX 80 has a tractor built into its platen for handling continuous feed paper between 9 2 and 10 inches in width To handle narrower continuous feed paper you must purchase the optional FX 80 tractor unit On an FX 100 you will find these items installed 7 A tractor unit 8 A dust cover for
100. F 2 ABS P 6 S R 200NEXT R 210 IF F gt 8 AND F 14 THEN F F 5 220 LPRINT CHRS F RETURN 0 01 Co FE CO lt gt lt gt O K now RUN the program you can have a few cups of coffee while you re waiting In the printout can you see white stars against the blackness of outer space The design above demonstrates that symmetry can increase the size of a complex figure produced by a two dimensional array The only problem is that the array for this figure uses over 20 000 bytes which 186 is nearly all of the available memory on many personal computers You are therefore not able to print significantly larger figures of this type with such computers If you like the effect that is produced by this use of random numbers but would like a bigger printout without using more memory there is a solution The alternate method used in the program listed below does not use symmetry and uses very little of the computer s memory because it does not store data in an array It is however not a perfect solution As you might expect there is a trade off Once you enter this program and type RUN you must wait an agonizingly long time before it is finished The program prints a figure that is over 36 square inches in area but it takes seven to twelve hours to run You will not however have to wait that long to see if the program is working correctly After the secon
101. F AMIDE DD PRINT STAYS CONT ESCAPE W The printer extends the dot matrix by spreading the dots horizontally to twice their normal distances apart and then it adds a duplicate of each dot to the next main dot column see Figure 3 7 E le ZEIT 4 F w wr cr oA dh dh 4 o i rN M 4 ow dah dh dh 4 4 di Ld LET Rosh 46 40 4 Lll Ld da dh 4A dhA 4 Lb 4 LL h da 4 Ah 46 4 Lad Expanded A Figure 3 7 Pica and Expanded letters Those of you who like compact program lines and those of you whose computer systems have difficulty sending a CHR 0 or 57 1 can use an alternative form for this pair For continuous Expanded and for the other modes which use CHR 1 and CHR 0 as a toggle switch you can use an abbreviation Here for example you can use LPRINT 27 W CHRS 1 Or you can use LPRINT CHRS 27 Wl for the same result Expanded Mode works equally well with any of the three basic pitches Type and RUN this program NEW 10 LPRINT YOU CAN PRINT EXPANDED 20 LPRINT CHRS 27 W1PICA 30 CHRS 15 COMPRESSED 40 LPRINT CHR 27 MAND ELITE 50 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHARACTERS YOU CAN FRINT EXPANDED FICA COMPRESSED AND ELITE CHARACTERS Most of the FX modes stay on continuously and so your program must turn off each m
102. HR n CHR n selects one of six graphics densities See also densities below Single Density 134 135 145 146 ESCape CHR 0 CHR n CHR n or ESCape CHR n CHR n turns Single Density Graphics on Double Density 146 148 ESCape CHR 1 CHR n CHR n or ESCape CHR n CHR n turns Low Speed ESCape CHR 2 CHR n CHR n or ESCape CHR n CHR n turns High Speed on Quadruple Density ESCape CHR 3 CHR n CHR n or 7 CHR n CHR n turns Quadruple Density on 244 Nine Pin 152 154 ESCape CHR d CHR n CHR n enters Nine Pin Graphics Mode reassigning code 150 152 ESCape s CHR n reassigns an alternate code to Graphics Mode n summary table Grid See dot matrix H Half Speed Mode 89 322 ESCape s1 turns it on ESCape 80 returns it to normal Head See Print head Hex dumping 305 306 Humidity 329 Horizontal tabs See Tabs horizontal I IX 20 and printer commands IBM Personal Computer 8 HO 313 314 Immediate Print Mode 89 90 ESCape il turns it on ESCape i0 turns it off Installation See Set up operations Interface 329 333 336 Intermediate positions See columns International characters 85 88 255 258 263 265 A DIP switch setting and or ESCape R CHR n selects one See also ASCII codes Italic Mode 72 73 ESCape 4 turns it on ESCape 5 turns it off K Kn
103. INE 71 Notice that ESCape T turns either kind of Script Mode off and also that both versions of Script Mode are automatically printed in Double Strike Since Double Strike prints at half speed so do the Script Modes And since Double Strike can t mix with Proportional neither can either type of Script If you are using the FX 100 and you switch in and out of Double Strike Mode several times in the same line you will see that the print line slopes slightly to the right This happens because Script prints in Double Strike for which FX printers use two passes After one pass to print the characters on the current print line the print head moves down the page one third of a dot to print the second set of dots The FX 80 can use reverse feed to return to the original print line but the FX 100 cannot This does not make much difference when you use Double Strike infrequently If you are using an FX 100 you can add Underline Mode to your program to see exactly where the jog comes 10 LPRINT CHR 27 1 We mention this now because it is with Script characters that you are most likely to move in and out of Double Strike several times on one line If you do that on an FX 100 you ll ge a line that dedines If Double Strike was the current mode before the printer entered Script Mode the printer exits from Script to Double Strike If not the printer returns to Single Strike Italic Mode This is the last print mode that we introd
104. IR STEFS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEFS Figure 7 3 Staggering STAIR STEPS 100 print the two lines of text and then move the print head up the page to print the line of hyphens above the first line 10 LPRINT REVERSE FEED 20 LPRINT 30LPRINT ARE YOU WATCHING 40 LPRINT CHRS 27 j CHRS 140 5OLPRINT X d REVEKSE FEED ARE YOU WATCHING If your system cannot send lowercase letters to the FX usethe numeric equivalent of j CHR 106 Don t use reverse feed with mailing labels in the printer they can either move on their gummed paper or peel off and get stuck inside the FX Summary The FX provides line spadng in increments of 0 72 to 85 72 inch and 00 216 to 255 216 inch You can cause the FX to change the size of a line space to one of three preset sizes or you can specify a size in fractions of an inch You ll use variable line spacing primarily for graphics The FX also gives you commands to produce an immediate line feed either forward or backward Table 7 1 summarizes the line spacing commands and gives a sam ple of each 101 Table 7 1 Line spacing commands Line Example spacing Command Ah 7 72 27 1 ae 9 72 07 0 SPACING 8 12 DOT CHR 27 2 DERIT RPM CHR 27 A CHRS n a 1 2 0 255 1 216 CHR Q7 3 CHR n
105. If you let it run long enough you ll see two sets Roman and Italic of upper and lower case letters plus many other characters If you plan to use your FX printer primarily for word processing or with some other commercial software you are now ready to follow the printer set up instructions in your software menu or manual Because most software packages include set up routines for dot matrix printers this set up may be merely a matter of specifying which printer you are using In case your software asks for specifications that you do not under stand check the appendixes or consult your computer dealer Some programs allow you to insert codes to activate such FX fea tures as Emphasized and Compressed printing Your software manual will tell you how to use this feature and the Quick Reference Card in Volume 2 will give you the necessary ESCape and control codes 36 Chapter 2 BASIC and the Printer While you read this manual you ll be testing your FX with pro grams in the BASIC language You can of course use another lan guage with your printer see Appendixes A through D for the ASCII and ESCape codes that your software manual will explain how to use Here we use BASIC because it is the most popular language for per sonal computers One of the simplest things you can do with any FX printer is print listings of your BASIC programs You merely load a BASIC program into the computer and send the LISTing output to the printer i
106. LPRINT ES END ZOO ORE ag KX 300 DATA 64 0 127 0 127 0 64 0 65 0 112 10 F 310 DATA 1 0 127 0 127 0 65 0 96 0 0 320 64 48 72 54 73 6 1 4 72 48 64 242 X 330 DATA 1 6 11 48 64 48 73 54 11 6 1 ES X 340 TICKET BORDERS 350 DATA 64 0 64 0 64 0 32 0 16 8 7 4 360 DATA 7 8 16 0 32 0 64 0 64 0 64 t5 370 pata 1 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 4 8 112 6 380 DATA 127 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 AT 390 DATA 112 8 4 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 1 8 400 DATA 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 127 410 DATA 73 0 20 34 0 73 0 34 20 0 73 Str Figure Easy 1 FX ticket program concluded TICKET TO SUCCESS SS EPR E SET EY EPSON AMERICA GENERAL ADMISSION Figure Easy 2 Ticket to success Ticket Program Description This is not a complete explanation of the program That s what the rest of the manual is for But this brief line by line description should help those of you who wish to analyze the program 10 Stores values in variables for easy access E holds the ESCape code CHR 27 20 Uses ESCape 1 to set the line spacing to 7 216 inch and the ESCape D sequence to set a horizontal tab stop at column 26 30 Uses the ESCape sequence to copy the entire ROM character set into RAM 40 Designates RAM as the source for the active character set 50 Prepares the printer to redefine characters 0 through 60 Sets a counter for the 11 letters being defined and selects the attribu
107. NE SKIF SIX LINE SKIP SIX LINE SKIF SIX LINE SKIF SIX LINE SEIF SIX LINE SKIF SIX LINE SEIF SIX LINE SKIP SIX LINE SKIF SIX LINE SKIP LINE Figure 8 4 Standard skip The CHR 27 N CHR 6 in line 10 tells the printer to skip 6 lines 1 inch which moves the paper across the perforation to the next top of form You can set the number of lines to any value from 1 to 127 as long as the value is less than that for the current form length set by default or CHR 27 C If the value is greater than or equal to the form length CHR 27 N is ignored 108 When you use the skip over perforation command you may want to change your top of form No matter what number you use as a skip over perforation setting the printer skips that many blank lines from the last text line to the new top of form In other words when you set your top of form the usual way you will have all of your blank space at the bottom of each page To get equal amounts of blank space on the top and bottom of each page you can set the top of form position below the perforation For the standard six line 1 inch gap setting the top of form to half an inch below the perforation will provide equal amounts of blank space at the bottom of the old page and the top of the new page You can turn the skip over perforation feature off with ESCape O that s the letter oh You also canca it by resetting the printer or by setting a new length with ESCape C
108. NE program you saved at the end of Chapter 16 and delete lines 1100 1170 You will use the line graphics characters to print a sales chart in this chapter Barchart This program creates the barchart shown as Figure 17 1 lt uses the line graphics characters from the LINE program as wel as three new user defined characters Change the following lines 100 LPRINT CHRS 27 3 CHRS 10 27 01 130 LPRINT 27 amp 0 94 CHRS 107 140 FOR Y 1 TO 14 LPRINT CHR 139 160 NEXT Y LPRINT 27 33 Line100 sets up line spacing and Unidirectional print You print in Unidirectional Mode to be sure the line graphics characters line up 227 ABC CO SALES FIRST QUARTER N DISTRICT DISTRICT DISTRICT 2 TER N N N N S N N N N N S N gt 2 Figure 17 1 Barchart In line 130 the parameters for amp specify that our 14 user defined characters will be stored at positions 94 to 107 ASCII symbols to k Line 140 sets up a READ loop Y for the characters and sends the attribute byte CH RS 139 Line 160 doses the loop and sets the form length to 33 lines so that while you are setting the chart up you can print two charts to a page When you finish making experimental printouts you will probably want to change this specification to 66 to conform to the usual page siz
109. PRINT CHR 27 1 CHR 7 The CHR 7 sounds the beeper to tell you when the array is full 178 The next line loads the beginning B ending E and step S values for the loop that will read and print the array 100 B 1 E N 6 5 1 We have you use variables here so that you can change them later That way you can make your program read the array in a number of directions Using 7 pins of the print head on each pass the program will take 3 passes to print a 21 row array If you change the array size remember to use a multiple of 7 Continue by adding these five lines 110 FOR P B TO E STEP 7 5 120 PRINT LOADING ROWS P TO P 6 S 130 LPRINT CHR 27 CHR 0 CHRS 0 150 FOR 1 TO N GOSUB 180 NEXT C 160 LPRINT NEXT P Line 110 loads the array rows from beginning B to end E in sets of seven Line 120 prints to the screen an update of the computer s progress Line 130 enters Graphics Mode and reserves N columns for graphics N is the width of the array Line 150 accesses the subroutine to be added next that calculates the pin patterns for each column And line 160 doses the loop for each pass P of the print head Pin firing sequences The last step before printing the figure is to convert those ones and zeros to pin firing sequences Add this subroutine to your program 170 LPRINT CHRS 27 Q END 180 F 0 FOR R P TO P 6 S STEP S 190 IF A R C 1 THEN 27 5 6
110. RINT P0 260 NEXT K 270 LPRINT 280 NEXT PASS These lines which are part of the loop for each pass cause the pro gram to check each element of the array and then print either the pattern P if the element is a one or the pattern PO if the element is not a one Line 280 completes the PASS loop After each pass is printed the program recalculates the values of P and PO in lines 170 and 190 Check your listing against the listing of Figure 14 3 to make sure it s all there 193 c E gt HEN 40 WO COAT gt CO Ne lt gt lt gt lt gt lt lt 70 1 PRINT A K PRINT PRINT C c CHRS 27 1 T C 7 R C 7 LAST FOR PASS 0 TO LAST P 0 PRINT PASS PASS OF LAST H 6 IF PASS LAST THEN H R 1 FOR DOT 0 TO H IF A 7 PASS DOT 1 1 THEN P P 2 6 DOT NEXT DOT P0 127 P IF PASS LAST THEN 0 0 1 2 7 N1 C N2 0 IF C gt 255 THEN N1 C 256 N2 1 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS 5 CHRS N1 CHRS N2 FOR 1 TO C IF A K 1 THEN LPRINT CHR P IF A K 01 THEN LPRINT CHR P0 NEXT K LPRINT NEXT PASS LPRINT CHR 27 2 END 308 FOR K 0 MAX N 310 FOR 1 1 TO N 320 1 A C X 330 NEXT 1 1 340NEXT PRINT N RETURN Figure 14 3 Program tor SYMMETRY then RUN it to seif it looks like Figure 14 4 194 AERE T Bra o 555 iiss
111. RINT CHR 11 TAB 1 FOR CHANNEL X 160 LPRINT CHR 11 TAB 2 FOR CHANNEL X 170 LPRINT CHR 140 180 NEXT Z 190 pata 1 2 3 2000 LPRINT 5 27 10000 END 127 TOF OF PAGE TOP OF PAGE TOP OF PAGE TAB 1 FOR CHANNEL 1 TAB 1 FOR CHANNEL 2 TAB 2 FOR CHANNEL 2 TAB 1 FOR CHANNEL 3 TAB 2 FOR CHANNEL 1 TAB 2 FOR CHANNEL 3 Figure 9 13 Printout of multipage channels Summary The FX gives you the ability to set margins and to use default regu lated and variable tabs you can set tabs in either the horizontal or vertical direction The default horizontal tabs occur in Pica regardless of the current pitch You set horizontal tabs in the current pitch The default vertical tabs occur at every other line in 12 dot line spacing All tabs are absolute once set subsequent changes in pitch or line spadng do not change the tab positions 128 CHR 27 1 CHR n Sets the left margin to n If you can t use low ercase letters use CHR 108 in place of 1 Limits are 0 78 in Pica 0 93 Elite and 0 133 in Compressed CHR 27 Q CHR n Sets the right margin to n Limits are 2 80 in Pica 3 96 in Elite and 4 137 in Compressed CHR 9 or CHR U7 M oves the print head to the next horizontal tab 11 Moves print head to the next vertical tab CHR 27 B CHR n CHRS n CHR n CHR 0 Sets vertical tabs at lines n n n Termi nates with CHR 0 or any number less
112. S n Enters Low Speed Double Density Graphics Mode and specifies the width setting Width n 256 n where n is 0 255 and n is 0 7 CHRS 27 Z CHR S n JCHR n Enters QuadrupleSpeed Graphics Mode and specifies the width setting Width n 4 256 n where n is 0 255 and n is 0 7 CHR3 27 s CHR n Reassigns an alternate codeto a new code number so that it produces a different Graphics Mode where s is the sequence letter orZandnisO 6 CHRS 27 CHR d CHR n CH R n Enters 9 Pin Graphics M ode and specifies the width setting where d is 0 for Single Density and 1for Double Density Width n H256 n where n is 0 255 and n is 0 7 158 Chapter 12 Design Your Own Graphics In this chapter we take you through the development of two graphics programs from design to implementation The two pro grams use entirely different techniques The first program uses a method of storing and recalling data similar to that of the curling pro gram in the last chapter You store pin patterns and their repetition fadors in DATA statements to produce a pattern that is suitable as a logo The second program does not read pin patterns from DATA state ments at all Instead you code the few necessary pin patterns into the program as constants You do store values in DATA lines to control the number of times each pattern is to be repeated These examples show how easy it is to create high resolution dot graphics on your FX
113. STRING function the GOSUB in line 220 can print a string of characters 230 uprint H H k HS H5 H5 HS 240 FOR R 39 TO 1 STEP 1 LPRINT H F 0 250 IF R 10 INT R 10 THEN LPRINT R 1 260 LPRINT B H g D C Line 250 prints the value of R every tenth line and sets a flag F to print DISTRICT 270 FOR M 1 TO 3 LPRINT H 280FOR P 1 TO 3 290 IF R gt MAX M P THEN LPRINT pp ELSE LPRINT CHRS 934P Line 290 compares the current row with the array MA X to deter mine whether to print a character or a blank space 300 NEXT P NEXT M LPRINT B H k C IF F 0 THEN LPRINT GOTO 320 310 LPRINT H CHRS 93 Z W DISTRICT W Z Z 241 320 NEXT LPRINT HS HS BS g HS HS HS HS k 325 LPRINT H H B 3j k HS HS HS HS HS k 229 330 LPRINT H H d A j GOSUB 800 LPRINT 335 LPRINT LPRINT 340 LPRINT C H5 H5 H PJAN HS MT FEB HS MAR LPRINT 390 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END Line 300 doses the P and M loops prints the right hand border and sends control to either 310 or 320 Line 310 prints the districts Lines 320 through 340 print the bottom portion of the chart Check your listing against the one shown as Figure 17 2 Now it s time to RUN your program and see if it looks like the printout near the beginning of this chapter You can change the heights of the bars by changing the data in line 40 Go ahead and SAVE the program as BARCHART if you like 230
114. TA statement contains 11 numbers even though the design uses only 9 of the 11 columns Unused columns must be coded as 0 202 Attribute byte The attribute byte is the first of the 12 data numbers required to define any character At print time it controls two aspects of the way the character is printed First it determines which 8 pins of the print head are used to print the character For most characters the top 8 pins are used but for lowercase characters with descenders like g and p the bottom 8 pins can be used So how does the attribute byte determine which 8 pins are used At print time the printer checks the attribute byte before each character is printed If the high order bit is on the top 8 pins of the print head are used if the high order bit is off the bottom 8 are used To put it another way if the attribute byte for a given character is 128 or greater the top 8 pins are used if it is 127 or less the bottom 8 are used Figure 15 4 demonstrates these choices ATTRIBUTE BYTE OFF 12864 32 16 8 4 2 1 If attribute byte is less than 128 bottom eight pins are used ATTRIBUTE BYTE ON Pit TT TT tT 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 If attribute byte is 128 or greater top eight pins are used 9 8 O 7 O 6 O 5 4 O 3 JO 2 O 1 O Figure 15 4 Pins chosen by attribute byte Proportional print The attribute byte also contains information used to print a charac ter in Propor
115. TAIR STEPS STAIR IR STEFS STAIR STEFS The CHR 27 O of line 10 changes the usual 12 dot 1 6 inch line spacing to a handy variation 9 dot 1 B inch spacing Nine dot spac ing is especially useful in the 9 pin Graphics Mode that we introduce in Chapter 11 Another convenient line spacing is 7 dot 7 72 inch To see this one change line 10 to 10 LPRINT CHR 27 1 STIR SIRE STAIR STARR sters Although 7 dot spacing is not suitable for text it does allow you to print graphics designs with no gaps You ll use it extensively in the graphics programs presented later Variable line spacing The FX indudes the three line spadng commands shown above mainly for convenience Besides printing in the preset 7 9 and 12 dot spacing the FX allows you to vary line feeds from 0 to 85 dots worth 0 7 inch to 85 72 inch ESCape A CHR n where n rep resents n 72 inch changes the distance that a line feed covers to n dots 95 To show what varying n can mean the following program increases the line spacing by one dot s worth on each line feed 20FOR X 0 TO 24 30 LPRINT STAIR CHR 27 X 128 STEPS 40 NEXT X 50 LPRINT CHR 27 2 STAIR STEPS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEPS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEPS STAIR STEPS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEPS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEPS STAIR STEPS STAIR STEFS Figure 7 2 Cascading STAIR STEPS Figure 7 2 sho
116. US Beet a nutu 16 9 Interlace XV 17 1 17 2 17 3 17 4 Barchart Program for BARCHART Statement form Program for STATEMENT List of Tables 1 1 DIP Switch lt 21 Several computers print LIST commands 38 2 2 Several computers printer activating commands 40 2 3 ASCII codes on the FX 31 Summary of print pitches 4 1 Summary of modes 5 1 Master Select Quick Reference Chart 52 Print ypes ccce ess mm BEEE EN S 8 6 1 Some special characters 6 2 International characters in Roman typeface 6 3 International characters in Italic typeface 6 4 International DIP switch 5 05 7 1 Line spadng commands 11 1 Graphics Modes 151 1 1 Variables for SYMMETRY sss 15 1 International character locations 210 16 1 ASCII pattern 219 xvii Introduction FX Features Epson s MX series of printers attracted enough attention to become the most popular line of printers in the industry Our FX printers fol low the same grand tradition The FX printers power packed assortment of features includes Upward compatibility with most MX III features
117. X 80 only The FX 80 can move even more slowly at the speed of your typ ing In the Immediate Print Mode the print head prints one character at a time as you send it The FX 80 also moves the paper up so that you can see the current line and then down to continue printing This kind of instant feedback can be especially helpful in telecommunica tions You turn Immediate Print on with CHR 27 i1 or to avoid the lowercase i CHR 27 CHR 105 1 But before looking at it let s review the normal operation of the printer buffer Enter this program NEW 20 A z INPUT TYPE A LETTER p AS 30IF AS THEN 50 40 LPRINT A GOTO 20 50 LPRINT Now type several characters and after each press the RETURN key True to form the printer just stuffs the characters into its buffer while it waits for a carriage return code To end this version of the program 89 and print the contents of the buffer press RETURN alone Now add this line 10 LPRINT 27 11 RUN the program Your FX 80 responds to your typing imme diately When you are finished press RETURN alone then use the zero version of the command to return to full speed Summary You can use the Backspace Mode to overstrike one or more charac ters In this manner you can combine two or more characters to form completely new ones Another way you can use backspacing is to sandwich it between two printings each in a different print mode to create ch
118. a ten it also prevents you from printing on the last quarter of a page If you need to print on this part of the page you can deactivate the paper out sensor by setting DIP switch 1 3 on Alternatively you can disable the sensor temporarily by using a software code ESCape 8 You can see how this works by running the next example Because you need to see it in action we do not provide a figure for either run of this program With the paper out sensor active switch 1 3 off and the beeper alive switch 2 2 on load a single sheet of paper and RUN this pro gram to see the sensor work 10 LPRINT 20 INPUT HIT RETURN WHEN READY A 30 FOR X 1 TO 60 40LPRINT PRINTING WILL STOP BEFORE PAPER RUNS OUT 50 NEXT X The printer quits about three fourths of the way down the page Good the sensor is doing its job Now let s override it Load in a new sheet of paper and change line 10 to read 10 LPRINT CHRS 27 8 When you RUN this new program with most computer systems the printer prints all 60 lines ignoring the paper out condition Some sys tems however ignore both the ESCape 8 code and the setting of DIP switch 1 3 See Appendix F You ll want to use this code with caution but it s nice to have when needed To restore the sensor to full power either send an ESCape 9 command or rese the printer Summary The printer automatically considers each page to be 11 inches or 66 lines of 12 dot line spacing long You can c
119. a capital H as in Figure 32 the print head fires pins 1through column 1 pin 4 in columns 2 3 and 4 and pins 1 through 7 again in column 5 50 Intermediate positions FX characters are designed to be five or fewer columns wide Leav ing the sixth column blank allows for space between letters Figure 3 3 shows the 6 main columns numbered 1 3 5 etc 1357911 Figure 3 3 Main columns Because the use of 5 dots does not give quite enough detail for the highest quality characters an FX prints some dots half way between the main columns in the 6 dot wide matrix This enhancement results in a matrix grid that is actually 11 dots wide 6 main columns with 5 intermediate columns You can count the 11 positions on the grid shown as Figure 3 4 WOOS ash dh dk os 4 b dh dh 46 4 4 4 4 d 3 r oak Figure 3 4 Intermediate positions The dots printed in intermediate column positions would overlap with those in the main columns if they were printed in the same row 51 If you look through Appendix A you ll notice that none of the FX s characters use dots in consecutive main and intermediate columns in the same row There is a reason for this the printer s speed The FX recalls a character s dot matrix pattern from ROM and prints it in 1 160th of a second At that speed the print head is simply moving too fast to pull the pins back and forth in time to print an overlapping dot This fact is criti
120. ace boards as well as cables Printer paper FX printers are designed to accommodate several types and sizes of paper Both printers include tractors so that you can use continuous feed paper with pin feed holes and friction mechanisms so that you can use paper without these holes Ribbon cartridge replacement The expected life of a cartridge is three million characters roughly 1 000 pages of text Print head replacement The expected life of a print head is one hun dred million characters over 30 000 pages of text Roll paper holder For the FX 80 you may purchase an optional roll paper holder Printer Location Naturally your printer must sit somewhere near the computer the length of the cable is the limiting factor but there are other consider ations in finding a choice location for your computer printer setup For instance you may want to find an electrical outlet that is not controlled by a switch since a switch may be accidentally shut off while you have valuable information stored in memory Be sure the outlet is grounded do not use an adapter plug To minimize power fluctuations avoid using an outlet on the same circuit breaker with large electrical machines or appliances Finally for continuous feed operations you must allow enough room for the paper to flow freely as in Figure 1 3 16 Figure 1 3 Paper path Printer Preparation Once you ve found a good home for FX you ll need to do some preparing b
121. actor unit is installed on your FX 100 you will need to remove it Then for either model push the friction control lever toward the rear of the printer pull the paper bail forward and insert the paper under the plastic separator Use the manual feed knob to feed the paper through If you use single sheets of paper the paper out sensor will cause a beep and stop the printing whenever the bottom edge passes the sensor Y ou can shut off the sensor by changing DIP switches as shown in Chapter 1 3 Turn the printer and computer on and load a short BASIC pro gram Then send a listing to the printer using LLIST LIST P or whatever your computer s listing command is You should ge a single spaced listing If the printout is double spaced or printed without line spacing you ll have to change a DIP switch Since there are many implementations of the BASIC program ming language it is impossible to write one set of programs that will work on every computer system This means you may need to modify our programs to suit your system In Appendix F we dis cuss such compatibility problems and suggest solutions for several popular computers Ticket Program Here is an example program written in BASIC that shows off a lot of the FX printer s features The program can give you a good survey of print control If you don t understand one or more features you can check the index to find what part of this manual covers it N 29 ES CHRS 27
122. adng the corresponding lines from the BARCHART program If your computer system requires a WIDTH statement to prevent the printer from issuing a carriage return before the graphics line is complete add it now 7 WIDTH LPRINT 255 The format for this statement may be different for your BASIC see your software documentation If you areusingan FX 100 add this lineto se the right margin 90 LPRINT 27 233 234 IDTH LPRINT 255 LPRINT CHRS 27 QP 100 DIM 18 LPRINT CHRS 27 20 CHRS 27 UL LPRINT CHR 27 CHRS 0 CHRS 0 CHRS 0 LPRINT 27 1 CHRS 0 LPRINT CHR 27 amp CHRS 0 at FOR Y 1 TO 20 LPRINT CHR 139 FOR 1 TO 11 READ C LPRINT CHR C NEXT X NEXT Y LPRINT 27 66 GOSUB 700 LPRINT CHR 27 18 mpsrpr mnopqrst CHRS 27 LPRINT CHR 27 B CHRS 18 CHRS 25 CHRS 1 LPRINT CHRS 27 D CHRS 13 CHRS 17 CHRS 57 CHRS 69 CHRS 1 HS CHRS 137 LPRINT 14 WSTATEMENT GOSUB 700 LPRINT GOSUB 700 LPRINT H H CHR 27 A 80 TRACK DRIVE GOSUB 700 LPRINT GOSUB 700 LPRINT H DATA TOWN U S A 01248 GOSUB 700 LPRINT LPRINT H H CHR 27 Q PHONE FX1 0080 LPRINT CHRS 27 LPRINT CHR 27 D CHR 57 CHRS 72 CHRS 1 C 2 H 2 F 0 FT 1 GOSUB 500 LPRINT LPRINT 11 amp 8
123. ample the letter G could be designed using the following four ASCII codes CHR CHR CHR CHR 71 Uppercase Roman G 103 Lowercase Roman g 199 Uppercase Italic G 231 Lowercese Italic g D RUNE Td Such usage is shown in Figure 16 2 217 orn XO XO FN NOOO v T Figure 16 2 Double high and wide character In order to define letters in groups of four you ll have to modify the definition process Fortunately the ASCII numbers that represent the four versions of each character have a consistent pattern That pattern in shown in Table 16 1 218 Table 16 1 ASCII pattern Roman letter L lowercase letter L 32 Italic letter L 128 With this in mind add these lines L PRINT CHRS L Print to screen 50 FOR Y 0 TO 1 FOR 2 0 TO 1 A L 128 Y 32 Z and make these changes 60 LPRINT CHRS 27 amp CHRS 0 CHRS A 70 LPRINT CHR 139 90NEXT Z NEXT Y Line 50 calculates the code A to be defined in line 60 by adding the appropriate amount to the base letter L Line 60 is the 27 amp defining sequence and line 70 sets the attribute byte to 139 The code for the letter to be defined and the data for its four compo nents are stored in DATA statements Delee lines 200 210 and type 250 G 260 DATA 71 270 DATA 0 15 16 0 32 31 64 0 64 0 64 280 DATA 64 4 72 2 32 2 24 4 0 0 0 290 DATA 0 120 4 0 2 124 1 0 10 1 3
124. and it uses this capability to place the underline one row lower than any text dot To do this the FX 80 prints the text to be underlined moves the print head down the paper one row s worth to print the underline then moves the print head back up to the original text line To see which method your printer uses delete line 10 and replace line 30 30 FOR x 1 TO X LPRINT CHR 103 NEXT x UNDERLINING IS SIMPLEggggg TO TURN ON OFF On the FX 80 the underlining does occur below the descenders of the gs Script M odes Super and Sub Print pitches such as Pica Elite and Compressed affect the width of characters both Elite and Compressed M odes may be seen as squeezing Pica characters horizontally FX printers can also squeeze a character vertically to about half its normal height These short characters are called Script characters not to be confused with cal ligraphic manuscript lettering Because the Script characters are so short they can be placed high or low on the line thus you can use them for either SUPERscripts or SUBscripts This command turns Superscripting on LPRINT CHR 27 50 This one turns Subscripting on LPRINT CHR 27 S1 Try this program to see both kinds of Script characters 20 LPRINT CHR 27 SOSUPER 30 LPRINT CHR 27 TSCRIPT AND LPRINT CHR 27 S1 SUB 50 LPRINT CHR 27 TSCRIPT 60 LPRINT CAN EVEN GO ON THE SAME LINE SUPERSCRIPT AND eusSCRIFT CAN EVEN GO ON THE SANE L
125. aracters with offsets You can select any one of the nine international character sets by using the control code sequence given below or you can designate any one of eight of the sets as the default set by changing a DIP switch You can cause any FX to print in Half Speed and you can cause the FX 80 to react as though it were a typewriter by using the Immediate Print Mode Here are the DIP switches we mentioned in this chapter Switches 1 6 1 7 1 8 Any change to these switches causes change of the default interna tional character set Here are this chapter s commands CHR 8 Causes a backspace CHR 27 R CHR n Selects an international character set where n 0 8 0 USA 5 Sweden 1 France 6 ltaly 2 Germany 7 3 United Kindgom 8 4 Denmark 90 CHR 27 s1 CHR 27 s0 CHR 27 i1 27 410 Turns Half Speed ON If your system can t send lowercase letters use CHR 115 CHR 1 Turns Half Speed OFF For the FX 80 only turns Immediate Print Mode ON If your system can t send lower case letters use CHR 105 CH R 1 Turns Immediate Print Mode OFF 91 92 Chapter 7 Line Spacing and Line Feeds Up to this point in the manual we have not discussed the way the printer moves a page so that it doesn t print lines of text right on top of each other Now we do In this chapter you will learn how to change the distance that the paper moves the movement i
126. ast print ing of text The FX however can also print high resolution graphics as you saw in the STRATA program But the side to side motion of a dot matrix printer makes it virtually impossible to place the print head in the middle of a page and trace out a lazy spiral or even a Does that mean the FX can t create the same type of figures that a plotter does Certainly not You just have to approach the problem a little differently than you would in working with a plotter In fact with a little advance planning you can use the dot graphics modes to simulate the activity of a full fledged plotter The secret to bringing out the plotter in your FX is to apply the capabilities of your computer system You can use its memory as a sketch pad With mathematical formulas you can design any sort of pattern Once you ve got your picture complete in memory you can send it line by lineto the printer When you use this approach the printer doesn t have to act like a plotter to draw like one The figures printed in this chapter show how easy it is to simulate plotter graphics with the FX You start by using the computer s mem ory as a sketch pad for the plotting To do this you set up a correspon dence between a pattern of dots on paper and a set of values that you arrange in the computer s memory Figure 13 1 Arrays The structure in computer memory in which you store your pattern of dots is called an array Think of an array as a
127. ay definitely a job for a plotter You can however use the standard distance formula as in Figure 13 5 to calculate the dis tance from the center cell 11 11 to each of the surrounding cells If this distance is equal to 10 the cell content is changed to one other wise the cell value remains zero 176 x SER ATI 2 see i 1 Le t eb via 11 11 pe m 8O SN v64 16 EE 3 80 m MS 894 10 Figure 13 5 Plotting a circle Circle Plotting You can have your program examine the cells of an array in any order the following program scans them row by row using two loops 20 FOR 1 TO FOR 1 TO At each cell line 30 calculates the cell s distance from a center point by using the distance formula 30 D SQR R 11 2 C 11 2 Next the program compares this distance with a number 10 that specifies the radius of a circle Notice that this formula commonly results in a number that includes a decimal fraction 8 94 If the distance for the current cell A R C is dose to 10 you set its contents equal to one otherwise you leave it alone 0 INT D S 10 THEN A R C 1 Line 40 sets any cell whose distance is between 9 5 and 105 equal to one 177 The final step to plotting a ci
128. bability of containing a one Since the program reads the array four times normal reversed upside down and upside down reversed the upper left comer of the array corre sponds to the center of the large figure that the program will produce and the cells farther away from that point correspond to the comers of that figure You will see the results when you run the program Also the use of randomness can yield a different pattern with each run of the program but you may have to use a different number in the RND statement for each run depending upon your version of BASIC Big bang Are you ready to see what the program does Change two lines 60 PRINT COUNTDOWN TO BIG BANG T MINUS N R NEXT R 130 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS 0 CHRS 2 N CHRS 0 You may want to check your program against the full listing 7 WIDTH LPRINT 255 10 DEFINT A N 105 DIM A N N 20 FOR R 1 TO FOR C 1 30 D SOR 2 2 N D D D 40 IF D gt RND 9 THEN A R C 1 C 60 PRINT COUNTDOWN TO BIG BANG T MINUS N R EXT R 185 70 LPRINT CHRS 27 3 CHR 20 CHRS 7 80B N E 7 S 1 90 FOR Z 1 TO 2 100 IF 7 2 THEN B 1 E N 6 S 1 0 FOR P B TO E STEP 7 S PRINT LOADING ROWS P TO 465 LPRINT CHR 27 CHRS 0 2 N CHRS 0 FOR C N TO 1 STEP 1 GOSUB 180 NEXT C FOR C 1 TO N GOSUB 180 NEXT C LPRINT NEXT P NEXT 2 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END 0 F 0 FOR R P TO P 6 S STEP 5 190 IF 1 THEN F
129. cal when you design characters as you will see in Chapter 15 M odes for Pitches Several of the FX printer s modes produce characters in different widths or pitches You may recognize two of these pitches as standard character widths used on typewriters a third produces a narrower character Each of these three is covered in one of the subsections below followed by a discussion of how the FX assigns priorities to its print modes We discuss other pitch modes later Pica and Elite M odes At start up the FX prints 10 characters per inch cpi This is the same pitch as that of a typewriter s Pica character set The FX can also print characters in an Elite pitch 12 cpi When you print in Pica on the FX 80 you can get up to 80 characters on a line changing to Elite Mode gives you 96 When you print in Pica on the FX 100 you get up to 136 characters per line Elite Mode gives you 163 Changing the print pitch between Pica and Elite does not change the number of columns in each character nor does it change the pattern used to create each character It simply moves the columns closer together or farther apart to change the width of each character To see how this works compare the Pica and Elite letters shown in Figure 3 5 Since the columns used to print Elite characters are packed more dosely than those for Pica more of them fit on one line of print Notice that Elite pitch compresses spaces as well as characters Elite Mode which p
130. cript Mode Superscript See Script Mode Switches See DIP switches Tabs effect of pitch on 122 margin settings with See Margins horizontal 119 122 CHR 9 or CHR 137 activates ESCape D CHR n CHR n CHR n CHR 0 sets horizontal tabs vertical 122 128 CHR 11 activates ESCape B CHR n CHR n CHR n CHR O sets vertical tabs ESCape b CHR N CHR n CHR n CHR n CHR 1 sets the vertical channel to ESCape selects channel n channels 126 128 Technical specifications 327 331 249 Temperature 329 Test automatic 35 36 for seven bit system 309 Top of form 31 33 103 104 CHR 12 sends the paper to top of form ESCape resets it to current paper position ESCape resets form length to default and sets top of form to current line with skip over perforation 109 See also Reset Code Tractor built in 24 28 cover removable 14 15 28 31 Troubleshooting 301 315 TRS 80 38 40 307 309 313 Type style chart 317 U Up arrow See Exponent character Underline Mode 70 72 ESCape 1 turns underline on ESCape 0 turns it off Unidirectional Mode 83 85 ESCape UI activates it ESCape UO turns it off ESCape lt turns it on for one line only User defined characters 199 213 ESCape amp CHR n CHR n CHR n defines characters ESCape CHR n CHR n CHR n downloads ROM characters into RAM attribute byte 203 2
131. d more data The DATA lines below supply data for the letters A M E S and for the space character It is necessary to redefine the space char acter since two of its four components print as 9 signs Be careful Although the space character is user definable you should avoid using it as anything other than a space character No matter how it is defined the space character will never print at the beginning or end of a line Enter the data lines as shown in Figure 16 5 Now add a loop to READ the new data by changing these lines 40FOR W 1 TO 6 READ L PRINT CHR 1 QONEXT 7 NEXT Y NEXT W 221 SPACE DATA 32 DATA 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 DATA 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 DATA 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 DATA 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 A DATA 65 DATA 0 0 1 0 1 0 6 24 32 92 0 DATA 67 32 24 4 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 DATA 0 65 32 7 24 33 64 32 16 0 8 DATA 8 97 24 7 0 97 24 7 0 1 0 M DATA 77 DATA 0 64 0 127 0 32 16 7 8 0 4 DATA 4 0 8 7 16 32 0 127 0 64 0 DATA 0 1 0 127 0 1 0 127 0 1 0 DATA 0 1 0 127 0 1 0 127 0 1 0 DATA 69 DATA 0 64 0 127 0 64 0 62 65 0 65 DATA 65 0 67 0 64 0 64 32 0 0 0 DATA 0 1 0 127 0 1 0 126 1 0 1 DATA 1 0 69 0 11 0 11 0 6 0 0 5 DATA 83 DATA 0 0 0 24 36 0 66 16 105 0 68 DATA 74 0 69 0 68 0 40 16 0 0 0 DATA 0 8 22 0 33 0 33 16 1 0 65 DATA 33 0 17 0 75 4 33 0 22 8 0 Figure 16 5 Data for AMES And RUN This time respond to the prompts by typing GAMES SEEM SAME 49 65
132. d row starts printing within 20 or 30 minutes you can compare your partial printout with the figure on the next page to see whether or not your program is on the right track We don t want to sound less than enthusiastic we just want you to understand the consequences of using less memory NEW 10 N 476 M INT N 1 2 WIDTH LPRINT 255 20N2 INT N 256 N1 N 256 N2 30 LPRINT CHR 27 3 CHR 20 CHRS 7 40 FOR P 1 TO N 6 STEP 7 50 PRINT PRINTING ROWS P TO P 6 60 LPRINT CHR 27 CHR 5 CHRS N1 CHR N2 70 FOR C 1 TO N 80 F 0 PRINT C 9 FOR R P TO P 6 100 D R M 2 C M 2 M 2 110 IF D gt RND 8 THEN 2 6 115 IF F 9 THEN F 10 120 NEXT R LPRINT CHRS F 130 NEXT C LPRINT NEXT P 140 LPRINT 27 187 By changing the value of N to different multiples of seven you can generate this pattern in different sizes Just be prepared to let your computer cook for several hours Summary We used this chapter to demonstrate the way you can use your FX as though it were a plotter You can also use your computer system to design a symmetric pattern applying mathematical principles to mini mize the amount of data needed and then store the data in an array When you print the pattern your system sends the data to the FX one line at a time 188 Chapter 14 Symmetrical Graphics Patterns In this chapter we continue to explore the generation of graphics patterns in m
133. d seven under which this channel will be stored If you have already stored a set using ESCape B the FX has labelled it as channel 0 If your system won t send lowercase letters substitute CH R 98 for the b As for ESCape B you can store up to 16 stops and you can use numbers between 1 and 254 Y ou use either 0 or a number smaller than n to terminate the setting process Because the channels are stored you must make the printer recall one before you can use it You use this format CHRS 27 CHRS n where n stands for the number of the channel 0 7 After you have used this format you perform tabbing by using CHR 11 as usual Of the two reasons we mentioned for using channels the program ming of a multipage report form is the simpler The program shown demonstrates the way you could se up an outline to be filled in by someone else or at a later date Figure 9 13 shows the printout of that program NEW 10 LPRINT CHRS 27 b CHRS 1 CHRS 15 CHRS 40 1 20 SET TABS AT 15 40 FOR CHANNEL 1 20 LPRINT CHRS 27 b CHRS 2 CHRS 25 CHRS 30 CHR 1 40 SET TABS FOR CHANNEL 2 aT 25 30 50 LPRINT CHRS 27 b CHRS 3 CHRS 30 CHRS 45 CHRS 1 60 SET TABS FOR CHANNEL 30 45 100 START OF MAIN PROGRAM 110 FOR 7 1 TO 3 READ X 120 LPRINT TOP OF PAGE 130 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS X 140 SET CURRENT CHANNEL PAGE 150 LP
134. d there is no other way to get 6 by adding powers of two This means that any combination of the eight pins adds up to a unique dedmal number which falls within the range 0 to 255 136 Print head a 74 J fires these pins representation of values Decimal representation Decimal sum of the desired pin pattern Figure 10 4 Pin combinations Now that you know the labels for the pins how would you fire the top pin Why by sending LPRINT CHR 128 of course And how about the bottom graphics pin That s right LPRINT If you wanted to fire only the top and bottom pins you d simply add 128 and one then send LPRINT CHR 129 By adding the appropriate label numbers together you can fire any combination of pins you want Now you can see why not being able to send an ASCII code above 127 is the same as not being able to fire the top First Graphics Programs The next few exercises show you what you can do by printing with one pin per column That may sound simple but with one pin at a time you can create interesting figures you move from a straight line to a slash a large caret a wave pattern and finally to a diamond pattern 137 In the programs that follow except the first we shorten the process of spedfying pins by using the fact that their labels represent powers of two Refer back to Figure 10 3 to refresh your memory about the relationship of ordinal numbers to pow
135. doc umentation Pin Labels Once you put the printer into Graphics Mode your next step is to tell the print head which pins to fire at each new position You do this by sending numbers via the CHR function Each number that you send represents a unique combination of pins You might expect that the eight pins would be numbered 1 through 8 as they are in Figure 10 1 But that won t work because you are going to send one number to represent all the pins to fire in one col umn Using the 1 through 8 system you would send such a total as 10 and the FX wouldn t know if this meant pins 4 and 6 or pins 2 3 and 5 135 Since computers use the binary numbering system Osand 1s only it is most efficient for each pin to correspond to the decimal equivalent of one bit in an amp bit binary number 1 2 4 8 16 etc see Figure 10 3 Exponent values 2 Q Figure 10 3 Pins labeled uniquely The hardware makes this the most practical labelling system Each pin corresponds to one of the eight data lines from the computer and each data line corresponds to one bit in a binary number The place values in a binary number are nothing more than the series made up of powers of two Figure 10 4 shows how you use a decimal sum 74 to fire a particular pattern of pins If you try adding several sets of pins together you ll seethat with this system you get no duplicates The number 6 represents pins 2 and 4 since 2 4 6 an
136. e Check that you like the positioning of your paper since C also sets top of form to the current position of the print head Now add these lines 10 FOR J 1 TO XFOR K 1 TO 3 20 READ MAX J K next J 4ODATA 12 18 23 28 36 34 28 27 30 Line 20 READsthe maximum heights for the chart s vertical bars from line 40 and stores them in the array MAX The next data lines define three new characters 70 DATA 2 1 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 64 32 80 DATA 127 0 99 0 65 0 65 0 99 0 127 90 DATA 127 0 28 0 62 65 62 0 28 0 127 228 Since you will need to switch two features line feeds and Empha sized Mode on and off within the program you can store their com mands as shorter strings 50 27 60 DS CHRS 27 4 J 4CHRS 11 CS CHRS 27 E If your system won t send 11 change both instances to either 10 12 The next 18 lines print the barchart 190 LPRINT CHR 27 D CHRS 14 19 CHRS 24 CHR 34 CHRS 44 54 200 LPRINT CHRS 60 CHRS 1 137 7 1 Lines 190 and 200 set horzontal tab stops and store the horizontal tab character in H 210 LPRINT H H CO SALES FIRST QUARTER 1995 LPRINT LPRINT 220 LPRINT H H B a 34 AS 4j GOSUB 800 LPRINT p 799 STRINGS ROUTINE 800 FOR 2 1 TO LPRINT A NEXT J RETURN Lines 210 and 220 start the printing using horizontal tabs and special characters For systems without a
137. e Appendix G or the Quick Ref erence Card for a list Although all of these defaults are originally set at the factory you can reset some of them by hardware by changing the appropriate DIP switches You can also change most features that have defaults by software But whenever you turn your printer off and back on you will have reset its default settings For example you can use the software control codes to make your pages be four inches long but the next time you reset your printer the page length will return to 11 inches Every control code that you send to the printer is stored in the printer s RAM buffer right along with thetext All material goes through this buffer to get to the printed page This buffer is like a holding tank in which each print line is collected The buffer can hold a full line of text characters on the FX 80 80 characters for normal width print more characters for narrower widths on the FX 100 136 for normal and more for narrower widths as well as control codes All information resides in the buffer until the buffer is filled or a control code that empties it is received One such control code issues a carriage return another type selects graphics as discussed in Chapter 11 Then the FX processes the line one character at a time As the printer encounters characters and codes it prints text characters on the page and activates the print modes according to the control codes If you understand the conc
138. e ER H P X Elite N A Q N A Expanded 0 8 Expanded N A 4 N A Expanded Compressed If you rely on Master Select to change print modes you don t have to turn each mode off separately when you want to change to a different combination When you select a new mix by Master Select it takes care of all resetting Because the Master Select also overrides the DIP switch settings you use the same codes even if you have rese some of the DIP switches Master Select combinations At the beginning of this chapter we introduced you to four print modes Figure 5 3 illustrates the 11 different ways these can be com bined If you add the default Pica Mode there are 12 different combina tions Four of these 12 combinations the ones that don t involve Super or Subscript can be combined with any of the 16 Master Select modes Four times 16 gives you 64 combinations The other eight combinations that involve Super and Subscript Modes can be com bined with the eight Single Strike Master Select modes Eight times eight gives another 64 combinations Add these to the first 64 and you get the total of 128 unique print modes that we mentioned previously To create a new combination that uses both Master Select and one or more of the dress up modes the simplest method is to choose a 76 SLIP RR TT JS GS COP eT ITALIC UNDERL INE SUPERSCRIPT ITALIC BSVUFPERRSCRIPT UNDERLINE SUBSCRIPT ITALIC
139. e of 67 317 See also specific modes by name Monospacing See Proportional Mode 246 N NEC 151 Nine pin graphics See Graphics Mode Noise reduction See Half Speed Mode 0 Offsets 82 83 ON LINE light and button 35 Overstrikes 81 82 P Page top of See Top of form Paper bail loading 24 32 304 length See Forms separator 17 18 thickness adjustment types or 16 24 328 Paper out sensor 304 ESCape 9 turns it on ESCape 8 turns it off DIP switch control of 297 298 Parallel interface See Interface Pattern design See Graphics PEEK See POKEing codes Perforation See Skip over perforation Top of form Pica Mode 52 53 Pin feed paper See paper Pin feeder and pin feed lever 26 28 Pins firing 135 141 numbering of 135 137 Pitch summary table of 60 See also specific pitches by name Platen Plotting See Graphics plotter POKEing codes 307 308 Preparation See Set up operations PRINT command iv 39 41 247 Print head and dot graphics 132 133 and dot matrix printing 1 24 328 replacement 324 325 Print modes See Modes Print pitch summary table 60 See also specific pitches by name Print quality 61 66 Print speed See Half Speed Mode Print type chart Print width See specific pitches by name Width Printer buffer Printer driver for problem codes 308 309 Priorities See Modes Proportional Mode 64 65 ESCape 1 turns it on ESCape pO turns it off at
140. e sure to fasten the wires to the grounding screws at each end With the paper loaded turn the printer on with the toggle switch at the left rear comer of the FX You get a little dance from the print head and three lights go on the POWER light the READY light and the ON LINE light If the ON LINE and READY lights are not on push the button marked ON LINE If the PAPER OUT light is on the paper is not loaded correctly 33 Do not use Front of printer Standard single pog ee paper Gy Rear of primer SS orna plus two copies and carbons Figure 1 20 Paper thickness adjustment 34 Figure 1 21 Cable connection Control panel When the control pand s ON LINE light is on the printer and com puter are in direct communication and the FF form feed and LF line feed buttons have no effect Go ahead try pushing one To usethe FF and LF button press the ON LINE button to turn it off Now you can see what the other buttons do Press the LF button briefly then release it That produces one line feed Now hold the LF button down for a moment to produce several line feeds The FF button advances the paper one complete page form If you hold the button down it advances several forms Ideally you ll set the top of form position before you turn on the printer That way your printing can start on the first line of the paper If you turn the printer on whilethe print head is sitting in the middle o
141. e two strings on different lines Also notice that the lowest valid line spacing is zero dots You can use this when you want to make multiple overstrikes on one line To see an example make these changes to your program 20FOR X 0 TO 4 30 LPRINT TAB 6 X STAIR CHRS 27 A CHR 0 STEPS STALRSShERSSTAFB STEER STBEE STEFS The reason for emphasizing 72nds of an inch is that the distance between the centers of any two pins on the print head is 1 72 inch So these line spacing commands are simply telling the printer just how many dots to space between the lines 97 Microscopic line spacing There is also a way to space at smaller intervals than 72nds Using a CHR 27 3 will set the spacing to increments of 216th of an inch 216 inch is one third the distance between the pins of the print head center to center That means the printer can position a specific line one third of a dot lower than the previous line In fact that s exactly how the Double Strike Mode operates One word of caution As you can imagine total accuracy is not guaranteed for such fine settings as 1 216 and 2 216 inch You specify this finer line spacing in much the same way as you did the variable line spacing that we showed above with CHR 27 A The format is CHR 27 3 CHR n where n can range from zero to 255 Here s an example using the 216 inch line spacing five times Change lines 10 and 30 to read 10 LPRINT CHRS 27 3 CHRS 1
142. ect at the next carriage return and they stay in effect until you change them 113 Try out the left margin command with NEW 10 LPRINT LEFT MARGIN 253 LPRINT 27 1 10 30 LPRINT LEFT MARGIN SET AT 10 40 LPRINT LEFT MARGIN LEFT MARGIN SET AT 10 Figure 9 1 Left margin setting As Figure 9 1 shows line 10 prints at the default zero left margin and line 30 makes the new left margin start 10 spaces to the right of the default You may have noticed that we did not have you reset the left margin to zero at the end of the program To see if the new margin is still in effect type your computer s LLIST command Does your printout page now look like Figure 92 The left margin is still set at 10 and it will stay at this setting either until it is reset by some software code or until the printer is turned off Margins and pitches Margin settings are not affected by changing the width of the print after they are set This means that if you set the margin in Pica Mode 114 LEFT MARGIN LEFT MARGIN SET AT 10 10 LPRINT LEFT MARGIN 20 27 1 CHR LPRINT LEFT MARGIN S 40 Figure 9 2 Listing at new margin and then switch to Compressed the left margin stays the same dis tance from the edge of the paper To see an example type LPRINT 15 and then your computer s print listing command Figure 9 3 shows the page with this add
143. ed trademark of Radio Shack a division of Tandy Corporation 80 Micro is published by Wayne Green Publishers Copyright 1984 by Epson America Inc Torrance California 90505 P8294017 Preface The User s Manual for the FX Series printers consists of two vol umes Tutorial and Reference This volume the Tutorial is arranged in the following logical groupings Introduction for everyone Programmer s Easy Lesson for experienced users Hardware description Chapter 1 Software introduction Chapter 2 Control of the way characters look Chapters 3 to 6 Control of the way pages look Chapters 7 to 9 Printer graphics Chapters 10 to 14 User defined characters Chapters 15 and 16 Using everything together Chapter 17 A complete table of contents for this volume is after this preface For your convenience there is an index at the end of each volume cover ing the complete two volume se You can therefore find all the refer ences to any topic in either one Conventions Used in This M anual We provide sample BASIC programs that allow you to see how various commands control the printer s capabilities Frequently we start with a few program lines and then make several changes and additions to end up with a substantial program We suggest that you use your SAVE command after each change to prevent losing pro grams because of power fluctuations or other accidents When you can RUN a program we show the results you should expect In
144. efore you can print This section describes the first steps which indude installing a few parts checking the setting of some internal switches and then inserting the ribbon cartridge Note The printer should be turned OFF during all set up operations Paper separator To install the paper separator hold it vertically so that it rests on the two slots at the back of the metal frame as shown in Figure 1 4 Press down gently but firmly until the separator snaps into place To remove the separator pull up on the left side first letting the right side slide out of its slot 17 Figure 1 4 Paper separator Covers For protection from dust and foreign objects and for quiet opera tion FX printers use two types of covers When you use the friction feed on either the FX 80 or the FX 100 or the built in tractor on the FX 80 use the pair of flat protective lids Figure 1 5 When you use the removable tractor unit use the tractor cover Figure 1 6 Install the center protective lid by inserting tabs into slots one tab per side on the FX 80 two on the FX 100 Fit the left side of the lid over the friction control lever you may need to slightly bow the mid dle of the lid before you can snap the tabs into their slots When you need to change the setting of the pin feeder on the FX 80 or install a tractor unit on either model remove this lid by giving it a slight upward tug Install and remove either the front protective lid or
145. emory As in the last chapter you will use ones and zeros in an array to generate pin patterns but this time you will save mem ory by using a one dimensional array to print a two dimensional figure You will construct one long program in which an array con taining less than 300 elements will produce a pattern made up of many thousands of dots Because of the length of the program we will only occasionally ask you to run it Begin by defining variables NEW 10 DIM A 480 X 1 C 0 20 MAX 5 MIN 1 RE 4 N 0 For easy reference Table 14 1 lists in alphabetical order the variables you will use for this program The array A which is DIMensioned in line 10 will store the pattern Program loops will use the variables in line 20 to control the size and shape of the figure You can change these values later to create your own variations on the pattern Here are the loops 30FOR J 1 TO RE 40 N N 1 50 GOSUB 300 60 IF N lt MAX THEN 40 70 N N 1 80 GOSUB 300 189 Table 14 1 Variables for SYMMETRY A Arra Counter of array elements Counter of dots used to calculate P Highest number used in calculating P Loop counter Loop counter Loop counter Last pass of the print head Maximum number for the pattern Minimum number for the pattern Number of pins in the current pattern Length of the graphics line Length of the graphics line Pin firing pattern Reverse pattern of P Number of the current pass Remainder Nu
146. epts of defaults and buffering you will rarely be surprised by what happens when you send a change code The next three sections concern change codes the first two cover changes you make to commands you have sent to the printer the last concerns making changes to text Reset Code You could turn off the Italic Mode by turning the printer off then back on Although turning the printer off resets the printer to its defaults which include Roman M ode cyding the printer off and on may disrupt computer printer communications FX printers have a Reset Code to avoid that ESCape CHR 64 To see the Reset Code work add these lines to your budding program 30 LPRINT CHR 27 CHRS 64 40LPRINT BACK TO ROMAN WITH THE RESET CODE and RUN it ITALIC CHARACTER SET RACK TO ROMAN WITH THE RESET CODE The Reset Code of line 30 turns off all special print modes and resets the printer to its default settings which indude Roman typeface The top of form is also reset now it s at the position of the print head when your program issued the Reset Code You can test this by using the FF button to advance the paper one page Notice that there is a blank line between the two lines of text in the printout This happens because BASIC provides a line feed after every line of print commands unless you put a semicolon at the end of the line As you will see we often end lines with semicolons to prevent unwanted line feeds The Reset Code is usefu
147. ers of two and the exponential labels for the pins We use the caret to represent exponentiation for example 2 6 means raise two to the sixth power Some computer Systems use instead of a caret an up arrow t which prints as a left bracket on the FX Straight line Your first testing of the FX s graphics potential will consist of firing the bottom graphics pin Enter and RUN this program be careful to indude the semicolons NEW 10 LPRINT CHRS 27 K CHRS 100 CHRS 0 20 FOR X 1 TO 100 30 LPRINT 1 40 NEXT X 50 LPRINT If your system won t send CHR 0 use CHR 8 This program deserves a full discussion Line 10 prepares the printer to accept 100 columns of graphics data Line 20 starts a loop for the LPRINT statement Note that the loop must match the number of columns specified in line 10 The printer is expecting 100 bytes of data it interprets everything it receives as graphics data until this quota is filled Line 30 sends a one to fire the bottom graphics pin The semicolon at the end of the line is necessary to suppress the carriage return and line feed ASCII 13 and 10 because otherwise they are sent automatically at the end of each LPRINT line Without that semicolon the printer would receive the sequence 1 13 10 1 13 10 instead of 1 1 1 1 138 Line 40 completes the loop Line 50 doesn t print anything it just forces a carriage return at the end of the print line overr
148. es are merely pointers to the control code areas in which the international characters are really stored To define any of these charaders while using an international set the true location of the character must be used For instance if the printer is in the Spanish set and you wish to define character 93 you must use CHR 8 in the CHR 27 amp sequence to define the charac ter but CHR 93 to print it To make sure you understand this thoroughly try answering this one how would you redefine the ESCape code First find 27 on the chart It occurs in two places one of which is in the column labelled Sweden and the row labelled 124 So you could store a user defined character at 27 and print it in the Swedish set as character 124 Mode Strings For some applications you may wish to use all 256 RAM locations for your own special symbols In that case there is no need to download the ROM into RAM But you will need a quick and easy way to switch back and forth between the two character sets One easy way to do this is to define two character strings 80 RAMS CHRS 27 S CHRS 1 CHRS 0 90 ROMS CHRS 27 S CHRS 0 CHRS 0 Add these lines to the current program To demonstrate their effect try 138 LPRINT CHR 27 amp CHRS 0 18 14 FOR Y 1 TO 8 LPRINT 139 180 LPRINT ROM 12345678 RAM 12345678 1120 DATA 0 63 64 8 64 8 64 28 64 32 0 My F 1130 DATA 0 32 64 0 64 63 64 0 64 32 0 My T
149. et of 256 characters There are 64 international characters stored in the ROM 32 in Roman and 32 in Italic typeface and of these you can only use 12 characters at time Each set of 12 is stored as the following ASCII numbers 35 36 64 91 92 93 94 96 123 124 125 126 The next program selects each of the international character sets in turn When you RUN it the printout shown here as Table 6 2 dis plays the special symbols of each set if you have problems consult Appendix F NEW 10 DIM ARRAY 12 LPRINT CHR 27 M 20 LPRINT 27 10 CHRS 0 30LPRINT 137 40 LPRINT 35 36 64 91 92 93 94 96 123 124 125 126 50 FOR X 1 TO 12 READ ARRAY X NEXT X 60 DATA 35 36 64 91 92 93 94 96 123 124 125 126 70 FOR 0 TO 8 LPRINT 27 Y 80 READ C LPRINT CSCHRS 137 14 90 FOR 1 TO 12 LPRINT CHR ARRAY p 100 NEXT X LPRINT NEXT Y 110 DATA USA FRANCE GERMANY U K DENMARK 120 DATA SWEDEN ITALY SPAIN JAPAN 130 LPRINT 27 There few items in the program that haven t been covered yet we ll cover them later The important thing now is to understand how you can use the CHR 27 R to gain access to the international characters 86 Table 6 2 International characters in Roman typeface 35 36 64 91 92 93 94 96 123 124 125 126 USA CN gt f p v FRANCE A GERMANY
150. f a form that is pre dsely where the next form will start when you press the FF button or your program sends the FX a form feed Remember that the ON LINE light has to be off for the FF and LF buttons to work The FX tests itself Now it s time to see how your new FX operates If you re using an FX 100 be sure you have full width 15 inch printing area paper 35 loaded because the printer s test uses all 136 columns Turn the printer completely off with the switch on the left side of the printer press down the LF button and turn the printer back on again while still holding down the LF button 0123456789 lt 2 784BCDEFGHIJ HEAR OG 17 70125456789 5 gt ABCDEFGHIJE HEAL 39 5 0125450789 gt 0125456789 gt P ABCDEFGHIJELM a 7 0122496789 lt lt 2 CO B 01254569789 gt 01234956789 TGOBCDEFGH IJKLMNOF 2 0125458789 GABCDEFGHIJKLMNOFPG bx 01235456789 gt ARCDEFGHIJELMNOPOR 20125456789 P G ABCDEFGHIJELMNOF QRS 701 gt ABCDEFGHIJELMNOFORST ig 1 TG B DDEFOGHIJELMNOPGRSTLU gt ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPORSTUV Figure 1 22 Sample automatic test Figure 1 22 shows the FX s automatic test which prints the standard characters that are stored in the printer The test pattern continues until you turn the printer off
151. f inch tear off strips at each side This allows the printer s pin feeders to engage the paper and pull it evenly through the printer After printing you can remove the tear off strips and separate the pages The 805 built in tractor handles continuous feed paper that is 996 inches wide which is the standard 8 zinch width with the tear off strips removed The FX printers removable tractor units optional on the FX 80 standard on the FX 100 handle continuous paper in widths from 4 inches to the width of the platen 10 inches on the FX 80 16 inches on the FX 100 The friction feeder on each FX handles all papers narrower than the width of the platen To refresh your memory about names of the parts refer back to Figure 1 2 FX 80 built in tractor feed The FX 80 s built in tractor will accommodate 9 to 10 inch wide continuous feed paper with pin feed holes You should have few prob lems loading it if you follow these instructions carefully 24 Inserting the ribbon cartridge Ribbon Ribbon Zz cartridge Printer frame Print head and ribbon guide Silver ribbon guide Ribbon Adjusting the ribbon Handle Figure 1 11 Ribbon insertion 25 Friction control Protective lid Print head Figure 1 12 Printer readied for paper insertion Be sure the printer is turned off Lift the front protective lid and move the print head to the middle of the platen Remove the center protective lid Pull t
152. g a program run without stopping every thing pushing the FF button then starting again you can use an ASCII code that performs a form feed whenever you want one For the form feed command to be of any use however you must 103 first tell the printer where the top of form is In most cases you ll want the printer to use the first line below the paper perforation as the top of form line To get this result turn the printer off and feed the paper through using the manual feed knob until a perforation lines up with the top of the ribbon see Figure 8 1 or consult Chapter 1 Figure 8 1 Setting the top of form Turn on the printer The FX will now remember this position on the paper as the top of form Each form feed will move the paper to the corresponding position on the next sheet Try pressing the FF button with the printer off line Sure enough the FX moves the paper right to the top of form Now press the LF button a few times then turn the printer back on line and type LPRINT CHR 12 ASCII 12 is the low order form feed code some users will be better off using the high order 140 104 CHR 12 sends the paper to the top of the next form It gives the same result as the FF button so long as you end the line with a semi colon to prevent BASIC from adding a line feed to the LPRINT line Not so standard forms The printer s default length for a form feed is 11 inches But what if you decide to use a different
153. g it If you don t see anything on the screen don t worry Remember that this was just a quick check We are mainly interested in sending that 193 to the printer and what it prints on the screen is not as important right now BASIC print commands Well then what happens when you send such a non standard code as 193 to the printer To test this out you need to know what program commands your computer uses to activate the printer Some typical command sequences are shown in Table 2 2 39 Table 2 2 Several computers printer activating commands Activating commands Computer 10 LPRINT CHR 193 Epson QX 10 IBM PC and Radio hack TRS 80 5 OPEN 0 1 COMO Epson HX 20 Notebook Computer 10 PRINT H CHR 193 99 CLOSE 5 Apple Il 10 PRINT CHR 193 99 PR Check your computer s reference manual and type in the com mands appropriate to your computer Then type RUN With any luck you will get an Italic capital A on the printer A lt lt If nothing prints it s time to double check your computer manual and cable connections Make sure the printer is ON LINE and the READY light is lit ASCII and BASIC basics If you end up with a Roman instead of an Italic A pay dose attention to the next three paragraphs The original ASCII code was designed to use the decimal numbers zero through 127 Computer systems designers soon decided to extend this range to 0 through 255 in order to make
154. h ESCape E or by DIP switch you can turn it off with ESCape F Emphasized Mode is always a variation of Pica it can never be combined with either the Elite or the Compressed Mode It can how ever be added to Double Strike See this by adding 40 LPRINT CHR 27 GCOMBINED THEY CAN T BE BEAT to your program DOUBLE STRIKE PRINT IS DARKER THAN SINGLE STRIKE EMPHASIZED ADDS A TOUCH OF CLASS COMBINED THEY CAN T BE BEAT 63 Emphasized Mode line 30 stays on until you shut it off Double Strike comes on line 40 before Emphasized is turned off You see the result above Proportional Mode Have you ever wondered why most computer printouts don t look as good as typeset books even when you use bold characters It s because most dot matrix printers use a uniform width for each charac ter monospacing whereas typesetting machines set the width for each character proportional to its size That is narrow characters like i and are printed without the excess space that would be used if they were printed in the same width as m and w Now the FX offers you a Proportional Mode on a dot matrix printer In this mode characters are printed with a uniform amount of blank space between them ESCape p1 turns on the Proportional Mode If your computer system doesn t allow you to use lowercase letters you may use a longer form instead ESCape CHR 112 1 Here s an example of the difference between Monospaced and Pro portiona
155. hange the length of each form in inches or lines with an ESCape code You can turn the skip over perforation feature the paper out sensor and the alarm on or 110 off either by changing DIP switches or by sending the printer ASCII codes as summarized below Switch 2 2 When on activates the beeper when off deactivates it Switch 13 When off makes the paper out sensor active when on deactivates it Switch 2 3 When off turns the skip over perforation feature OFF when on produces an auto matic 1 inch skip over every perforation Check to see if you want to reset any switches before going on to Chapter 9 Here are the commands we covered in this chapter CHR 12 Produces a form feed CHR 140 is the alter nate high order version CHR 27 C CHR O CH Sets the form length to n inches where n is 1 22 CHR 27 C CHR n Sets the form length to n lines where is 1 127 CHR 27 N CHR n Turns the skip over perforation feature set to n lines where is 1 to less than the current form length in lines Is cancelled by CHR 27 and CHR 27 C as well as CHR 27 O CHR 27 O Turns the automatic skip over perforation feature OFF CHR 27 8 Turns the paper out sensor OFF 27 9 Used in conjunction with CHR 27 8 turns the paper out sensor back ON CHR 27 3 The Reset Code resets the form length to 11 inches the top of form to the current line and the skip
156. he paper bail and the friction control lever toward the front of the printer Your printer should now look like Figure 1 12 Adjust the pin feed levers to approximate the width of paper you are using Pull the levers forward to release the pin feeders move them so their arrows line up with the correct position on the scale eg for 9 5 for 9 amp inch paper and push the levers backward to lock them into position Figure 1 13 If you are using fanfold paper start by positioning your paper directly beneath or behind the printer as in Figure 1 14 so that the paper won t kink or pull to one side Insert the paper under the plastic separator guiding it with your left hand while you slowly roll the manual feed knob clockwise It is 26 Pin feed Notches Figure 1 13 Pin feeder adjustment very important to keep the paper straight so that the pins on both sides engage at the same time If the paper does not move smoothly remove it by reversing the manual feed knob and start again with an unwrinkled sheet Figure 1 14 Loading the FX 80 27 e As the paper comes up the front of the platen watch to be sure that itis feeding under the black edges of the pin feeders If your paper is wrinkling as it comes through you may need to readjust the pin feeders e Reinstall the center protective lid underneath the paper Push the paper bail back against the paper and dose the front protective lid You are now ready to set the top
157. he vertical line line 40 prints one character represented by ASCII 124 10 times 10 print lines Line 50 resets the printer to its defaults 83 Figure 6 1 Bidirectional line Look carefully at your printout or at the version we show as Figure 6 1 See how the line seems to quiver Now turn on Unidirectional printing to see how much difference it makes Add line 10 and RUN the program again 10 LPRINT CHR 27 U1 Figure 6 2 Unidirectional line CHR 27 U1 turns on the Unidirectional printing whose results we show as Figure 6 2 CHR 27 00 turnsit off Did you watch the print head as it printed In every row it moved from left to right instead of alternating directions as usual You can get the same effect for one line at a time by using the com mand CHR 27 lt This command causes a carriage return with no 84 line feed which means that the subsequent movement of the print head will be from the left margin to the right To see this in action delete line 10 and change line 40 to read 40FOR X 1 TO 10 LPRINT CHRS 27 lt CHRS 124 NEXT X When you RUN it you can watch the print head move to its leftmost position after it prints each line Unidirectional print motion straightens out the slight misalignment of characters that results from printing bidirectionally in the Elite or Compressed Mode The difference is subtle but often it s such subtle ties that make a topnotch graphics d
158. ica you do not have to type out the long sequence LPRINT CHR 27 G CHR 27 27 W1 since you can get the same result by using LPRINT CHR 27 CHR 56 or even after consulting the ASCII table for the equivalent of 56 LPRINT 27 8 Because this latter format is the ultimate in simplicity we use in Table 5 1 below You can find the Master Select code for any valid combination of pitch and weight by reading across in the row for the pitch you have selected and down in the column for the weight you want Where the two intersec you will find the ASCII symbol to use in the simplified format For example to combine Compressed with 74 GZ s221012 Z G ANBI 0 SINGLE STRIKE PICA 1 SINGLE STRIKE ELITE 4 SINGLE STRIKE COMPRESSED 8 SNGL STRIKE EMPHASIZED PICA 16 DOUBLE STRIKE PICA 17 DOUBLE STRIKE ELITE 20 DOUBLE STRIKE COMPRESSED 24 DEL STRIKE EMPHASIZED PICA 32 SINGLE STRIKE EXPANDED PICA 33 SINGLE STRIKEE XPANDEDELITE 36 SINGLE STRIKE EXPANDED COMPRESSED 40 SNGL S TRIKE EMPHASIZED EX PAN DED 48 DOUBLE STRIKE EXPANDED PICA 49 DOUBLE STRIKEEXPANDEDELITE 52 DOUBLE STRIKE EXPANDED COMPRESSED 56 DBL STRIKE EMPHASIZED EXPANDED PICA A Double Strike use LPRINT CHRS 27 T N A indicates that the two modes cannot be combined Table 5 1 Master Select Quick Reference Chart WEIGHT PITCH Single Strike Emphasized Double Strik
159. iding the semicolon of line 30 Forcing the carriage return is not really necessary since the line is the last one of this program It s just a good habit to develop Notice that the printer doesn t print each time it receives a CHR I The FX stores data in its print buffer until it receives as many numbers as it expects in this case 100 Slash Using the form 2 X you can fire individual pins by letting X vary between 0 and 7 0 and 6 for 7 bit systems Here s how it works To exercise the pins in a pattern a slash that shows off their placement enter NEW CHRS 27 K CHRS 7 CHRS 0 80 FOR X 0 TO 6 110 LPRINT 2 120 NEXT X When X equals 0 2 X is 1 so the bottom graphics pin is fired When X equals 1 2 is 2 so the second pin is fired This pattern continues right up through X equals 6 which fires the seventh pin We purposely omit X equals 7 to accommodate systems that are limited to 7 bits Large caret The next step is to change the direction of the slash Can you guess how it s done Sure just reverse the order of the exponents and the same routine can be used In fact let s turn it into a subroutine 10 F 0 4 27 K CHRS 14 CHRS 0 50GOSUB 80 1 GOSUB 80 70 LPRINT 27 END 80 FOR X 0 TO 6 90 IF F 1 THEN N 6 X 139 110 LPRINT CHR 2 N 120 NEXT X RETURN On the first pass of the loop line SO N equals X and the
160. igure 13 4 array A the cell name is A 2 3 175 DIMension and arrays Most BASICsallow you to use up to 10 rows and 10 columns in an array without any special preparation of the computer s memory Since arrays use up lots of memory you must inform the system if you intend to use a larger array In BASIC this is done with the DIM en sion statement which is contained in the first line of the next program Enter NEW 10 DEFINT A N 21 DIM A N N If your system rebels at line 10 use 10 DEFINT A N 21 DIM A 21 21 The DIM statement in line 10 reserves enough memory for 21 rows and 21 columns of numbers That gives you a total of 441 cells Each cell takes up 2 4 or 8 bytes depending on the precision of the vari ables you use The DEFINT restricts all variables that start with the letter A to be of theinteger type 2 bytes this definition saves mem ory Filling arrays Most computer systems set to 0 all numeric variables induding cells of arrays at the beginning of a program If your system does not automatically do this use the following lines to perform the same function 15 FOR X 0 TO N FOR Y 0 TO N 17 A X Y g NEXT Y NEXT X To plot a figure in memory after all the cells are set to zero you simply deposit ones in the correct positions using LET statements For exam ple the statement 2 3 will place a one in location 2 3 Suppose you want to plot a circle of radius 10 in the 21 row by 21 column arr
161. inconsistendes by sending control codes for advanced printer functions in care of a special ASCII code that is called an ESCape code The next five subsections discuss these matters in more detail 38 Character strings The character string or CH R function converts any decimal number from zero through 255 to a character or action Its format is CHR followed by a number in parentheses for example CHR 84 The character string command follows a PRINT or LPRINT com mand and causes your computer system to send an ASCII code to the computer s screen or to the printer What gets printed or performed is determined by the particular modified ASCII table that is used by your system Where the printing or action happens on your screen or your printer depends on the print command that precedes the character string command For a fast check on what your computer does with this fundion try printing a few characters on your computer s screen The usual format for this is PRINT CHR n The n represents one of the numbers from Zero to 255 each one of which accesses a unique character or action Try typing this 10 PRINT CHR 65 and RUNning it Since most computers use the numbers from 32 to 127 to mean the ASCII set of characters you should see a capital A on the screen It s the numbers less than 32 and greater than 127 that produce different results on nearly every brand of computer Try entering 10 PRINT 193 and RUNnin
162. is booklet is available from the U S Government Printing Office Washington DC 20402 Stock No 004 000 00345 4 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical photocopying recording or other wise without the prior written permission of Epson America Inc No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book Epson America Inc and the author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein Baby printout on cover reprinted with permission of Apple Computer Inc copyright 1984 Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Inc Centronics is a registered trademark of Data Computer Corporation Concept is a trademark of Corvus Systems Inc DEC is a registered trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation FX 80 FX 100 RX 80 and RX 100 are trademarks of Epson America Inc HX 20 Notebook Computer is a trademark of Epson America Inc IBM PC is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation NEC is the NEC Information Systems Inc a subsidiary of Nippon Electronic Company Ltd QX 10 is a trademark of Epson America Inc TRS 80 is a register
163. isplay possible International Characters Remember the tilde that you used at the beginning of this chapter to create the approximately equal sign Well that tilde is only one of the many uncommon characters that are stored in the FX as components of the nine international character sets We mentioned the international character sets in Chapter 1 when we explained that the factory set defaults for the DIP switches indude the selection of the USA character set Besides the pound sign 5 dollar sign and at sign the USA set indudes the nine other symbols shown in Table 6 1 one or more of these nine may not appear on your computer s keyboard Table 6 1 Some special characters Left bracket Back slash Underline Accent grave Left brace Flat colon Right brace Tilde But that s not all Your FX has the makings of a world correspon dent Packed in the ROM arenine sets of letters and special characters 85 that are used in different countries These international characters can be accessed with LPRINT 27 where n is number from zero to eight The ESCape sequence selects one of these nine countries 0 USA 3 United Kingdom 6 Italy 1 France 4 Denmark 7 Spain 2 Germany 5 Sweden 8 Japan Once you have selected a country you can use its special characters Choosing a new international character set however does not give you a completely new s
164. itch 1 6 Switch 1 7 Switch 1 8 generate eight combinations Table 6 4 shows the switch settings Table 6 4 International DIP switch settings Swich 16 Switch 17 On Sweden Off That leaves the Japanese set unaccounted for If you want the characters for it you must choose the set by using the ESCape R statement Special Speeds You can control the speed of the FX s printing in a couple of ways You can set it to print at half its usual speed and FX 80 users can cause it to print one character at a time immediately upon input You turn 88 either of these capabilites on and off as a mode with an ESCape sequence Half Speed Mode The FX can print at the fine rate of 160 characters per second cps But it will also print more slowly if you want it to the Half Speed Mode prints at 80 cps The command sequence uses lowercase s plus zero and one as a toggle LPRINT 27 51 turns Half Speed M ode on and as usual the zero version of the command turns the mode off If your system can t send lowercase letters use the longer format LPRINT 27 115 1 to get the same results The FX uses Half Speed as we explained in Chapter 4 to enable extra dense printing But why would you want to make the printer work at half its normal speed The main advantage to Half Speed printing is a quieter run for those late night printing sessions Immediate Print M ode F
165. ition LEFT MARGIN LEFT MARGIN SET AT i8 10 LPRINT LEFT MARGIN LFRINT 27 1 CHRE S0 LERINT LEFT MARGIN SE LFRINT 18 LPRINT LEFT MARGIN 28 LPRINT 27 1 EHRE IBO 38 LPRINT LEFT MARGIN SET AT 18 48 LPRINT Figure 9 3 Absolute left margin 115 Thetext prints in Compressed M ode but the left margin is still set at 10 Pica spaces Right margin The general format for the right margin is CHRS 27 Q CHRS n For the 80 n can range from 2 to 80 in Pica 3 to 96 in Elite and 4 to 137 in Compressed Mode For the FX 100 n can range from 2 to 136 in Pica 3to 163 in Elite and 4 to 233 in Compressed The lower limits may seem strange when compared with the Osallowed for left margin limits We ll investigate the limits on the right margin shortly but first let s try out the command The margins can be set either from a BASIC program or from the BASIC command level without line numbers The following line sets the right margin to 5 in Pica Type LPRINT 18 27 Q CHRS 5 and 58 LPRINT RIGHT MARGIN WHERE Now RUN your program LEFT MARGIN LEFT MARGIN SET AT 10 RIGHT MARGIN WHERE Figure 9 4 Right margin set incorrectly 116 Figure 9 4 shows the new listing which did not print out at the posi tion you specified What happened Well the CHR 18 turned off Compressed Mode but there was no change in the margin because the
166. ity Graphics Mode on See Graphics Mode ESCape M Turns Elite Mode on See Elite Mode ESCape N CHR n Sets skip over perforation See Skip over perforation ESCape O Turns skip over perforation off See Skip over perforation ESCape P Turns Elite Mode off See Elite Mode ESCape Q CHR n Sets the right margin See Margins ESCape R CHR n Selects an international character set See International character set ESCape SO Turns Superscript Mode on See Script Mode ESCape SI Turns Subscript Mode on See Script Mode ESCape T Turns either Script Mode off See Script Mode ESCape 00 Turns Continuous Unidirectional Mode off See Unidirectional Mode ESCape U1 Turns Continuous Unidirectional Mode on See Unidirectional Mode ESCape WO Turns Expanded Mode off See Expanded Mode ESCape W1 Turns Continuous Expanded Mode on See Expanded Mode ESCape Y CHR n CHR n Turns High Speed Double Density Graphics Mode on See Graphics Mode ESCape Z CHR n CHR n Turns Quadruple Density Graphics Mode on See Graphics Mode ESCape CHR d CHR n CHR n Enters Nine Pin Graphics Mode See Graphics Mode ESCape b CHR N CHR n CHR n J CHR 0 Stores channels of vertical tab stops See Tabs vertical ESCape 10 Turns Immediate Print Mode off See Immediate Print Mode ESCape il Turns Immediate Print Mode on See Immediate Print Mode ESCape j CHR n Turns reve
167. l M odes Enter NEW EO LPRINT Bene ee I 20 LPRINT 27 1 40 LPRINT 1 1 PROPORTIONAL ON 60 LPRINT 27 pO 70 LPRINT PROPORTIONAL OFF 80 LPRINT 27 Lines 10 and 40 print the same number of exclamation marks but the characters from line 40 are packed more closely Proportional Mode prints the characters in Emphasized and strips off all unused space between characters The shut off command for Proportional print is either ESCape pO or ESCape CHR 112 0 Either puts the printer back into the mode that it was in before it entered Proportional Mode As an example if the printer enters Proportional Mode from Compressed M ode ESCape pO returns the printer to that mode Since all Proportional characters are Emphasized it makes sense that Proportional characters like Emphasized can only be printed in Pica pitch not Elite nor Compressed In addition Proportional Mode cannot be mixed with Double Strike The cost of all this high powered printing is the slower speed of printing and the wear and tear on the ribbon Understandably these dense modes shorten the life of a ribbon compared to Single Strike printing Used sparingly however they can give you increased capa bility for little increased cost Mixing Modes Much of the fun of owning an FX is trying out all the different mode combinations In the process you ll find that some modes make magic together
168. l when you want to turn off all printer modes It resets everything to its start up condition If you have sev eral different modes active in the printer at one time they are all shut off by the ESCape CHR 64 ode cancelling codes The FX printer also provides specific codes to turn off each mode separately For example an ESCape CH R 53 turns off the Italic character set and leaves everything else untouched To see how the spedfic cancelling code for Italic Mode works change the Reset Code in line 30 above to an ESCape CHR 53 30 LPRINT 27 53 40 LPRINT BACK TO ROMAN WITH ITALIC OFF 45 ITALIC CHARACTER SET BACK TO ROMAN WITH ITALIC OFF Notice that CHR 53 turned Italic off and the semicolon at the end of line 30 eliminated the blank line between the two lines of text DELete and CANcel But suppose you don t want that much power Suppose you only want to erase text in the print buffer without affecting any print modes Two codes do this DELete and CAN cel DEL e which is CHR 127 removes the latest text character from the buffer without affecting control codes CAN cel which is CHR 24 is a slightly more powerful code It removes all the text currently in the buffer but it also does not affect the control codes These codes are seldom used but they can be helpful if your system sends unwanted characters at the beginning of a program listing or a program run You can then use one or more
169. laced side by side there is one intermediate column that unless the first charader is printed in Emphasized Mode cannot contain any dots As you can see in Figure 16 1 that is the shared intermediate column Unused columns LS Figure 16 1 Side by side characters 216 Large Letters Double High Let s stack two characters one on top of the other with these changes 10 LPRINT 27 1 27 01 100 LPRINT A 110 LPRINT B 200 DATA 16 32 95 0 64 0 127 0 63 0 0 210 DATA 14 0 123 0 3 0 123 0 1 127 0 15 4h 2 Line 10 changes the lines spacing to 7 dot and turns on Unidirectional Mode for precise alignment of the two lines If there are slight gaps between rows change the line spacing to 6 2 3 dot with CHR 27 3 CHR 20 With a little imagination you can create some dynamite patterns by combining characters Giant Letters Double High and Double Wide For even larger type styles you can design letters that are both two characters tall and two characters wide This gives you an 18 by 22 matrix If you have a 7 bit system you will haveto skip to Core Sets below Which ASCII numbers can be use to store the four characters that will make up each letter A quick glance at the ASCII chart Appendix A shows that there are four symbols that readily relate to each letter of the alphabet They are the upper and lowercase versions of each letter in its Roman and Italic typefaces For ex
170. le To make a more continuous figure you need a graphics mode of higher density To get it change line 130 to 130 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS 1 0 6 This does give a more satisfactory density but now the program distorts the circle Mathematically inclined folks can adjust for this distortion by creating an ellipse in the array the horizontal compres sion creates a circle If you pursue this course keep in mind that the FX has several graphics densities available With figures this small it is difficult to obtain a smooth curve The solution is to draw larger drdes Unfortunately larger arrays gobble up memory For example an array wide enough to stretch dear across an g inch page in Single Density would contain over 200 000 cells 480 x 480 Considering that each call takes up at least two bytes there is not much hope of tucking the entire array into memory all at once So how can you squeeze more print out of your arrays For non symmetric designs you are pretty well stuck with the memory limita tion of two bytes per cel unless you are willing to resort to more 181 drastic measures One such measure would be to let each bit of the numbers stored in the array cells represent one graphics dot This would increase the storage ability but tremendously complicate the programming For symmetric designs such as the cirde you can use a different measure Take advantage of the symmetry to increase your
171. les 12 8 Program for FX 100 figure 12 9 More distinct version 12 10 Most distict version 12 11 Reversed version 131 Computer memory as sketch pad 13 2 Array in memory and 13 3 Ones and zeros become dots and blanks 13 4 Labelled cell 13 5 Plotting a Grade 13 6 Displaying an 13 7 Divide and conquer 14 1 Printing the array contents 14 2 Pattern sets 14 3 Program for SYMMETRY 14 4 pattern Edad ee e e 14 5 pattern 2 14 6 Symmetric pattern 3 15 1 ROM and user defined characters 15 2 User defined 15 3 Incorrectly designed 15 4 Pins chosen by attribute byte 15 5 Attribute byte conversions 16 1 Side by side characters 16 2 Double high and wide character 16 3 Program for giant G 16 4 Giant G EERON SAS 16 5 Data for AMES 16 6 Games seem same 16 7 Messages in three pitches 16 8
172. like listing BASIC programs or using a word processing pack age a description of the hardware and an overview of the software may be all that s necessary In this case you need only Chapter 1 the Quick Reference Card at the back of Volume 2 and a knowl edge of the program you are using You can always learn about the FX s advanced features at a later time You might for instance someday want to modify a word processing software package so that its printer driver uses special FX features The lessons will be waiting for you For those who prefer to roll up their sleeves and see how the printer works we ve included sample programs to demonstrate each of the printer s features For those who want only a quick and easy reference the compre hensive Table of Contents the Appendixes and the Index provide ready access to information For computer professionals and other experienced users who simply can t wait to find out what the printer will do regardless of the consequences we have a special section entitled Programmer s Easy Lesson It gets you up and running fast then turns you loose on a program that demonstrates several of the printer s features This program the Appendixes and the Quick Reference Card will bring you quickly up to speed For those who are already familiar with the MX or RX series of printers Appendix E provides a summary of the differences between the FX the RX and the M X Think of the manual as you
173. lu tions to interfacing problems while Appendix E lists the defaults and shows the DIP switch settings See also the Quick Reference Card Here are the DIP switches that we mentioned in this chapter Switch 2 2 Controls the beeper Switch 2 4 Controls the number of vertical lines that the printer spaces at the end of a print line Here are the codes that we have covered in this chapter listed in the order of their appearance CHR 7 Causes a beep CHR 27 Prepares the printer to accept other control codes Escape code CHR 27 4 Turns Italic Mode ON CHR 27 Resets the printer to its defaults Reset Code CHR 27 5 Turns Italic Mode OFF CHR 127 DELetes the latest text character in the print buffer CHR 24 CANcels all text in the print buffer 48 Chapter 3 Print Pitches One of the big advantages an FX printer has over a daisy wheel printer or atypewriter isthe ability it gives you to choose from a variety of widths or pitches for your characters To use this feature wall it s important to understand just how an FX prints The tech nique used by an FX printer is called dot matrix printing Dot Matrix Printing A dot matrix is a grid or graph that someone who designs a charac ter set for a dot matrix printer uses The dot matrix designs for the characters which may be letters of the alphabet numbers or sym bols are stored in the printer s read only memory ROM The FX s dot matrix is nine rows of
174. mand several printers instruction sequences allow such options as using 0 quote zero quote in place of 0 Besides mention ing some of these solutions within the text of this User s Manual we have written a troubleshooting appendix Appendix F Control codes Enough talking about problems Here s a program line to try 10 LPRINT CHR 7 Be sure to use the appropriate printer access commands for your system 41 Now RUN it You should hear a short beep If you don t hear it check DIP switch 2 2 using the procedure we gave in Chapter 1 That s the printer s beeper which most often sounds to inform you that you ve run out of paper Appendix F lists other causes of beep ing When you produce the beep you ve proved that on your com puter certain codes do indeed perform printer functions Table 2 3 shows the ranges that the FX uses when it interprets ASCII codes for charaders and functions Table 2 3 ASCII codes on the FX ASCII code FX interpretation group to 31 127 Printer control codes 32 to 126 Standard Roman character set 128 to 159 255 Additional control codes Function same as 31 127 160 to 254 Italic character set See either Appendix A or the Quick Reference Card for a chart of the FX interpretation of each ASCII code number This would be a good timeto try printing a few of these codes on your own And you may want to take a break before you start the next section
175. mber of repeats of the pattern 0 or 1 to fill the arra 90 IF N gt MIN THEN 70 100 NEXT J PRINT loop will Repeat four times RE 4 It has two subloops each of which depends on the value of N Each time through the first loop lines 40 to 60 N increases by one to the value of MAX Each time through the second loop lines 70 to 90 N decreases by one to the value of MIN For each value of N the program calls subroutine 300 and each time it is called this subroutine adds more ones and zeros into the array Enter the program lines for the subroutine by typing 290 LPRINT CHR 27 2 END 300FOR K 0 TO MAX N 310 FOR 1 1 TO N 320 1 A C X 330 NEXT L X 1 X 340 PRINT Nj RETURN 190 Line 320 in the L loop stores the ones and zeros in the array The end of line 330 makes X alternate between zero and one To print out the contents of the array at this point type 5 LPRINT 27 Q CHRS 44 110 FOR K 1 TO C LPRINT A K NEXT K LPRINT LPRINT C C and RUN your growing program Figure 14 1 shows the first seven lines of the result Figure 14 1 Printing the array contents Your entire printout s just a one line array the ones and zeros wrap around when they meet the temporary right margin that you set in line 5 This program shows how FOR NEXT loops can use variables to create patterns The overall pattern gets made up of five sets of pattern 1 four sets of 2 three set
176. n ordered set of cubby 173 Figure 13 1 Computer memory as sketch pad holes or cells arranged in rows and columns as Post Office boxes are Each cell of the array corresponds to a dot position on the paper Fig ure 13 2 Figure 13 2 Array in memory and on paper Although the cells in a numeric array can hold nearly any numeric value you use only the binary numbers 0 and 1 for this graphics program Figure 13 3 demonstrates using a 1to represent a dot and a 0 to represent no dot 174 eoeoo Figure 13 3 O nes and zeros become dots and blanks Why all this fuss and stew about arrays We want to show you that the FX can simulate a plotter And once the correspondence between array cells and dot positions is firmly established you can easily plot in any direction Let s look at the way each cell is named The cells are arranged in rows and columns so each cell can be easily pinpointed by its row and column position COLUMN 1 2 3 4 I 1 2 2 3 ROW lt a 3 4 i Figure 13 4 Labelled cell The labelled cell of Figure 13 4 sits at the intersection of row 2 and column 3 so you can label it by its address cell 2 3 In BASIC you give the entire array a name then append the address to the name Thus if you name the array of F
177. ns per FX 80 page And that doesn t even take into account intermediate columns the FX 100 s ability to print 136 Pica matrixes or both models ability to use graphics density settings to increase the number of dots across the page and microscopic line spacing to increase the number of dots down the page Since there is a huge number of such dot positions on each page this sounds like a giant task It won t be however because we ll give you methods to shorten the time and steps to good graphics design Print Head Printing high resolution graphics on the FX requires a mode that is very different from the text modes In any of the several versions of Graphics Mode none of the predefined characters or symbols in the printer s memory are used Instead you create the patterns of dots that are printed Thus you control where and when each and every dot is printed To do this you look at the page as a series of dot columns arranged in rows For each column position on a print line the print head impresses the pattern of dots that you have specified Before you can start designing these patterns however you need to know a little more about the way the print head works Even though there are nine pins on the print head each column can be only eight dots high That s because printer computer communica tions are based on eight data lines with each of the top eight pins of the print head corresponding to one of the eight lines So each
178. nstead of to the screen Unfortunately different computer systems access the printer in different ways For example most computers that use Microsoft BASIC send PRINT or LIST commands to the printer by adding a leading L to a screen command LPRINT LLIST etc Some other com puter systems use PRINT in place of LPRINT Another group uses to route information to the printer and to restore the flow of information to the screen If you aren t familiar with your system s command conventions consult its manual We will use the LPRINT and LLIST commands for our examples in this manual because the widespread acceptance of Microsoft BASIC makes these commands as dose to a standard as exists in this industry But remember that you may need to modify such commands to match the unique aspects of your system The Preface and Appendix F can help Once you have discovered how your computer communicates with the printer load a BASIC program into memory Now list it onto the printer using your computer s version of the LLIST command Some examples are shown in Table 2 1 37 Table 2 1 Several computers print LIST commands Command Computer LLIST Epson QX 10 IBM PC and Radio Shack TRS 80e Epson HX 20 Notebook Computer Apple II LIST PR 0 If your listing is more than a page long or if you didn t start the listing at the top of a page your printer may have printed right over the perforation Set DIP swi
179. nt with commas A program reads these items from the DATA statement into variables with a READ statement Now begin a new program with a READ statement and the values for the pattern of Figure 11 7 Enter the following lines but don t RUN the program yet 154 50 READ N 90 DATA 3 7 31 63 126 124 112 96 92 66 33 25 5 3 Line 50 reads the first data number into the variable N To read the rest of the numbers line 50 must be executed in a loop Add these lines to the program 20 27 K CHR 14 0 30 LPRINT AS 0666 4 4r 4 4 44 4 n 126 112 92 124 96 Figure 11 7 Curling design 40 FOR X 1 TO 14 60 LPRINT CHR N 70 NEXT X 80 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END Perfect Just like the design Repeated patterns Now how would you go about repeating this pattern add more data Or store the data in program variables to be recalled as needed Here you don t need to go to that much trouble For simple programs 155 like this one you can just ge the program to reread one set of data by using a RESTORE statement To see this change two lines and then RUN the program 30 FOR Y 1 TO 19 RESTORE LPRINT A 79 NEXT X NEXT Y aano am umo ano amc unc arc Although the new loop in line 30 repeats the pattern 10 times you don t need 10 repetitions of the DATA statements The RESTORE statement in line 30 tells the program to read the same data again If
180. numbers with similar patterns or you can POKE the trou ble codes directly to the FX Learning how to cope with these problems is part of learning how to usethe printer with your system See Appendix F for help Density Varieties The FX printer offers you the 16 text densities that we printed out as Figure 5 2 and seven graphics density settings that we list later in this chapter Table 11 1 Remember that you can choose a text density by specifying it in the Master Select ESCape code sequence and that you can switch densities later by changing one parameter in that code The FX has a similar command sequence for specifying and chang ing modes for its graphics densities Here is the commands format LPRINT CHR 27 CHRS m CHRS n n where m indicates the number 0 6 of the desired Graphics M ode and the settings n and n are the usual graphics width settings The seven modes indude six densities and the two speeds for Double Density Before you try out any of the new graphics density settings record a sample line of Single Density To do so enter this new program 20 AS CHRS 27 CHRS 0 CHRS 50 CHRS 0 30 BS CHRS 85 CHRS 42 40 LPRINT A FOR 1 TO 25 LPRINT B NEXT X 50 LPRINT Ji SINGLE DENSITY GRAPHICS 60 LPRINT A FOR 1 TO 25 LPRINT B NEXT X 70 80 LPRINT CHR 27 Q 145 SINGLE DENSITY GRAPHICS The printer fires pins 1 3
181. o print the center portion of the X where the diagonal fall meets the diagonal rise at a point and no low section is required Line 90 serves two purposes It forces a line feed each time a nega tive number is read and it skips the last three steps of the four step cycle so that each print line can end on a low If your computer system requires a WIDTH statement to prevent the printer from issuing a carriage return before the graphics line is complete add it now 7 WIDTH LPRINT 255 The format for this statement may be different for your BASIC see your software documentation To print the program with one line of data add lines 40 and 190 the latter differs for the FX 100 40 LPRINT G 190 DATA 3 20 2 3 12 3 22 14 8 14 6 1 and RUN it Nn Vr GN The negative number at the end of line 190 signals the end of the print line The last program changes add a loop to print 17 lines and enter the data statements All the data lines differ slightly for the FX 100 30 ror D 1 17 print ROW D 90 IF H 0 THEN LPRINT GOTO 140 140 NEXT D GOSUB 160 200 DATA 3 20 3 3 10 3 21 18 4 18 4 1 210 DATA 3 20 4 3 8 3 21 5 8 5 2 5 8 5 3 1 220 DATA 3 3 22 31 Or Spe op 91 bed p or bep e pori 230 DATA 3 3 23 3 4 3 23 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 240 DATA 3 3 24 3 2 3 24 3 12 3 2 3 12 3 3 1 250 DATA 373725730737 2p ober ort 9202 or 260 DATA S 6 5 19 0908 5272712 35 2571 270 DATA 3 20
182. ob See Manual feed knob Labels Left bracket See Exponent character Left margin See Margins Length of forms See Forms Lever See Friction control Paper thickness Pin feed LF See Line feed Lids removal and replacement 18 19 245 Line feed 98 101 CHR 10 produces it button 35 36 computer interface and See Interface DIP switch for 23 one time immediate 99 100 ESCape J CHR n produces it reverse ESCape 4 R n produces it Line spacing 93 98 ESCape A CHR n sets to n 72 ESCape 0 sets at 1 8 ESCape 1 sets at 7 72 ESCape 2 sets at 1 6 default ESCape 3 CHR n sets at n 216 in graphics 133 134 140 141 154 form feed 107 summary table 102 See also Skip over perforation Top of form Graphics LIST commands 37 38 Location of printer 16 17 LPRINT See PRINT Lubrication 323 324 Mailing labels See Labels Maintenance 323 324 Manual feed knob 19 20 Margins 113 118 effect of pitch on 114 116 with horizontal tab setting 118 122 left 113 116 ESCape 1 sets left margin right 116 118 ESCape CHR n sets right margin printing width in Compressed and 117 Master Select 73 78 Quick reference chart for 318 Mathematical symbols 81 82 Matrix See Dot matrix Memory See RAM ROM Microscopic spacing See Line spacing Modes mixing 56 59 65 66 317 319 priorities 55 56 58 59 66 318 319 summary tabl
183. ode when you are finished with it We tell you about the few exceptions to this rule such as the CHR 14 version of Expanded as they come up Multiple print pitches on one line Suppose that you want to emphasize just one word within a line by printing it in a different pitch The following program shows how it can be done 10 LPRINT YOU CAN MIX 20 LPRINT PICAP p 30 CHR 14 EXPANDED 40 LPRINT CHRS 20 CHRS 15 BICOMPRESSED 50 LPRINT CHR 14 V EXPANDED 60 LPRINT 20 27 AND ELITEP 70 LPRINT 14 EXPANDED 80 LPRINT 27 ON THE SAME 58 YOU CAN MIX PICA EXPANDED COMPRESSED EXPANDED AND ELITE EXPANDED CHARACTERS ON THE SAME LINE By deleting the semicolon at the end of line 10 and adding a semicolon to the end of line 30 you can mix all six print pitches on a single print line In program lines 30 to 70 CHR 14 and CHR 20 move the printer in and out of Expanded Mode This program turns Compressed Mode on in line 40 and Com pressed stays on until the Reset Code turns it off in line 80 It gets replaced masked in line 60 when the program turns on Elite Mode which has a higher priority Since doubling the width of the three standard pitches adds more dots to the matrix of each character doubling gives you a darker print There are other ways you can get darker print plu
184. odes 128 to 159 and 255 Enables printing of the codes 0 to 31 except those used as control codes The control codes can be printed with CHR 27 R Disables printing of codes 0 to 31 213 214 Chapter 16 Combining User D efined Characters In this chapter we ll explore the technique of combining user defined characters to make large letters and symbols Large Letters Double Wide We ll start by placing two characters next to each other to form a double width letter Enter this new program being careful to enter the line numbers as written NE 20 LPRINT CHR 27 0 0 CHRS 0 25 Copies ROM to RAM 30 LPRINT 27 1 0 Activates RAM CHRS 27 amp 0 AB 65 Defines characters A amp B 70 FOR 1 TO 2 LPRINT 139 Attribute byte 80 ron 1 TO 11 READ LPRINT CHRS N NEXT x 90NEXT Y 180 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END The ESCape sequences in line 20 30 and 60 are the commands from the last chapter This program prepares the printer to define the two characters A and B Enter the DATA lines 200 DATA 0 2 5 0 11 16 3 32 70 0 84 210 DATA 68 32 66 49 8 21 14 5 2 0 0 And how do they look side by side Enter 100 LPRINT AB 215 Very nice Using two charaders side by side provides a larger matrix and therefore gives more flexibility in character design But there is one problem When two user defined characters are p
185. ome fun You can change a few of the pin patterns to make a dramatic effect on results These changes work the same on either mod amp s figure 170 These changes fill in the diagonals as illustrated in Figure 12 9 100 LPRINT CHR CHR 31 CHRS 120 LPRINT CHRS CHRS 7 3 1 CHR 3 CHR 7 CHRS 15 63 CHRS 127 1 27 CHRS 63 31 CHRS 15 CHRS 1 644 Figure 12 9 Moredistinct version And one additional change fills in the entire text Figure 12 10 110 FOR X 1 TO LPRINT CHR 127 NEXT X Can you vary the program to produce a complete black white reverse like the one in Figure 12 11 Summary We did not introduce any commands in this chapter Instead we demonstrated two ways of programming dot graphics For the first example we used DATA statements to store pin patterns and repeti tion factors For the second example we stored the pin patterns as constants and used DATA statements only to store repetition factors 171 10 Most distinct version Figure 12 Reversed version Figure 12 11 172 Chapter 13 Plotter Graphics As you work with dot graphics you may run into printer limita tions because dot matrix printers are designed primarily for f
186. ond slot n Send it a 0 134 Often a figure needs more than half a line To reserve more than 255 columns for graphics the second number n must be greater than 0 But n does not represent a number of single dots it represents a num ber of groups each of which contains 256 dots Using a 1 the second slot means reserve one group of 256 dots plus whatever is in the first slot A 2 in that spot means reserve two groups of 256 dots 512 plus and so on up to 7 times 256 1792 dots on the FX 80 and up to 12 times 256 or 3072 on the FX 100 Adtually the FX 80 will accept numbers larger than 7 for n but it is pointless to send them because the printer treats them as modulo 8 That is 8 works the same as 0 9 as 1 10 as 2 etc Similarly the FX 100 treats numbers above 12 as modulo 13 The maximum number of dots you can reserve on the FX 80 then is 27 K CHRS 255 CHRS 7 which is 255 dots plus 7 times 256 dots for a total of 2047 dots per row On the FX 100 you can reserve 255 plus 12 times 256 for a total of 3327 dots per row But on a Single Density print line you can only fit 480 dots For now we ll stick with Single Density which means that we won t use numbers over 480 Later we ll see that the FX does have Graphics Modes of greater density Some systems such as those for the IBM PC and the Epson QX 10 also require WIDTH statements for longer lines See your system
187. one this pattern repeats only once Now s the time to experiment with some of your own changes to the variables and loops Summary In this chapter you used a single string of ones and zeros to create a two dimensional figure You can use this technique to create large pat terns with little drain on computer memory but only with highly structured patterns You also used a graphics density of 72 dots per inch to produce a one to one aspect ratio of the dots 197 198 Chapter 15 User D efined Characters If you ve studied the program examples in this manual you are quite adept at printing both graphics and text with the FX In this chapter we re going to share the secrets of the ultimate in printer con trol defining your own characters With the FX you can create any number of new characters graphics patterns to serve as building blocks for larger designs or even whole type fonts You can use these characters for any purpose as long as they fit into the same dot matrix as the ROM characters do 9 dots tall by 11 dots wide 6 main columns plus 5 intermediate col umns Figure 15 1 shows a comparison of a few sample characters and their ROM equivalents ROM USER DEFINED CHARACTERS CHARACTERS LETTERS SYMBOLS NUMBERS 8 0 FPLAY IT AGAIN FX 80 Fa Figure 75 7 ROM and user defined characters Once you define your own characters you can use them over and over just as you use the FX s ROM characters
188. ottom pin pin 1 repeat L times 2 Draw a diagonal 1 64 3 Fire the top pin pin 64 repeat H times 4 Draw a diagonal fall pins 64 1 This pattern is repeated several times Printing the figure is mainly a matter of reading the length of the low and high sections then printing the four part cyde First version of 3D program We have you enter this program in portions that are easy to discuss as units so please don t try to RUN it until we givethe word Might as well start off with the easy stuff Set the line spacing for 7 pin graphics NEW 10 LPRINT CHR 27 1 Note If your system leaves gaps in 7 dot graphics printing you will prefer to use the 6 2 3 dot line spacing CHR 27 3 CHR 20 Next up are the three straight lines at the start of the design There s no need for anything fancy just a single dot printed across the page For that add these lines lines 20 and 170 are different for the FX 100 29 GS CHRS 27 L CHRS 51 3 GOSUB 160 158 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END 160FOR X 1 TO 3 LPRINT G 165 170 FOR Y 1 TO 819 LPRINT 1 NEXT Y 180 LPRINT NEXT X RETURN Now RUN the first trial Line 20 stores the graphics entry string in G This produces Low Speed Double Density dots for 819 columns 514 3x256 2819 Line 170 fires the bottom graphics pin 819 times The X loop lines 160 and 180 repeats the routine to print the line three times Becau
189. ound in the ROM Characters can be a maximum of 8 dots tall even though the matrix is 9 dots and 11 dots wide Most characters use only the top 7 pins of the print head lowercase characters with descenders use the bottom 7 Also note that all characters leave the last two columns one interme diate and one main unused this provides space between the letters when they are printed Figure 15 2 shows the design of a letter E in an 8 by 11 matrix Unused 62 8 8 28 34 0 65 65 65 65 0 Unused Figure 15 2 User defined 201 To be consistent with the ROM characters we use only 7 rows The character would normally go in the top 8 rows but we shift all the dots down one row so that 7 bit systems can stay with the program Also note that two adjacent dots cannot be printed in the same row Even in Half Speed Mode the printer simply refuses to print two overlapping dots Figure 15 3 illustrates an E that is incorrectly designed because it uses overlapping dots Will not print Will not print Figure 75 3 Incorrectly designed E Dots into DATA The data numbers for each column of Figure 15 2 are calculated in the same manner as the data for Graphics Mode And the appropriate numbers can just as easily be stored in DATA statements Type in the READ routine and data for the character in Figure 15 2 150 FOR 1 TO 11 READ C LPRINT CHR C NEXT X 1170 DATA 62 65 8 65 8 65 28 65 34 0 0 E Notice that the DA
190. pairs N yrs R FOR 2 1 TO CHR 630 READ P NEXT J P LPRINT CHR 640 GOTO 610 control 64 16 and into P and R and prints them 16 times Control then returns to line when the negative 16 in line 800 is read into passes to line 630 Line 630 reads the next two numbers For exampl 0 which reads the next number 61 161 There s only one thing left to do before you can print the first line enter a Graphics Mode 600 LPRINT CHRS 27 L CHRS 60 CHRS 0 Now RUN the program FM That s a good start To complete the program add 7 dot line spacing a loop to process the last five lines of data and the data lines 100 LPRINT CHRS 27 1 590 FOR 1 TO 6 650 LPRINT NEXT LPRINT CHR 27 END 799 lt lt lt LOGO DATA gt gt gt 810 DATA 0 126 1 0 126 1 5 0 0 1 2 4 11 18 36 16 8 32 4 32 4 16 8 0 128 820 DATA 0 0 0 64 32 16 72 36 3 16 4 34 65 0 0 65 34 8 16 4 18 11 4 2 1 0 9 0 0 128 839 DATA 8 0 0 64 32 16 72 36 4 16 36 65 0 0 1 66 36 16 3 2 0 0 128 840 DATA 0 32 16 64 8 64 15 8 32 72 16 32 64 6 0 0 0 127 0 0 127 0 0 0 128 850 DATA 7 0 0 0 8 4 16 2 16 15 2 8 18 36 72 16 32 64 2 0 0 128 Now RUN the STRATA program 16 7 4 16 4 18 11 4 2 1 Figure 12 2 STRATA logo And there you haveit Figure12 2 a genuine logo that you could use on all types of business printouts If your printout doesn t
191. printout evidence change your program to turn on Double Strike at the same time as Proportional Then when you turn Proportional off 65 the printer will prove that Double Strike has been turned on all the time Add lines 30 and 50 and make some changes to line 70 30 LPRINT CHR 27 G 50 LPRINT WHEN PROPORTIONAL GOES 70 LPRINT 11111111111110 DOUBLE STRIKE CAN COME ON Even though Proportional Mode will not permit Double Strike to affect lines 40 and 50 since Proprotional Mode has priority Double Strike does take hold as soon as Proportional is shut off Figure 4 3 shows the priorities for the modes we ve covered so far Proportional Emphasized Compressed Pica Note Each mode takes precedence over the modes beneath it Figure 4 3 Mode priorities Not all mode combinations create conflicts You ve already seen how well Emphasized and Double Strike combine In the next chapter we show you more modes to mix with these Summary Double Strike Emphasized and Proportional Modes can be used to produce bold characters Proportional which prints in Empha 66 Sized strips excess space from between characters Double Strike can be combined with all other modes except Proportional whereas Emphasized and thus Proportional cannot be combined with either Elite or Compressed Mode combinations are governed by the FX s priority list This list determines which mode gets printed when two o
192. program Delete lines 40 through 90 and add 40LPRINT CHR 27 D CHR 6 CHRS 12 CHRS 20 CHRS 0 D LPRINT ONE H TWO H5 END RUN it to see if you get the results of Figure 9 8 01235456789012354567890123456789 ONE TWO END Figure 9 8 Variable horizontal tabs In line 40 you se new tab stops at 6 12 and 20 terminating the setting process with CHR 0 The H sends the tabbing command For your horizontal tab settings you cannot use a number larger than the one that represents the last column of the page If you have not reset the margins for the FX 80 this is 79 in Pica 95 in Elite and 131 in Compressed 121 For the FX 100 this is 135 in Pica 162 in Elite and 232 in Compressed Don t forge that resetting the margins automatically returns the tabs to their default settings Set margins before tabs Tabs are set in the currently active pitch and subsequent changes in pitch do not affect the tab positions Here s proof Add these lines to your current program 60LPRINT CHR 15 70 LPRINT H H TWO MORE H THE END and RUN it 012245678901 234567890122456789 ONE TWO END TWO MORE THE END Figure 9 9 Absolute horizontal tabs Figure 9 9 shows two more factors of tabbing First it demonstrates the way to skip tab Since in line 70 you specified a tab stop H with no text string the printer moved to the second stop Second this figure shows that the tabs are
193. r Select For Master Select you use the code sequence of ESCape fol lowed by CHR and a number in parentheses With Master Select you can quickly produce any possible combination of the following Single Strike Pica Elite Compressed Emphasized Double Strike Expanded These are the modes for pitch and weight Master Select will accept any number between 0 and 255 Since there are only 16 unique combi nations however we ve devised a program Figure 5 1 with which you can print out a handy reference chart Figure 5 2 listing one set of Master Select numbers 73 NEW 20 Y 1 SINGLE STRIKE p Y 2 SNGL STRIKE EMPHASIZED g 30 Y 3 DOUBLE STRIKE Y 4 DBL STRIKE EMPHASIZED p 40 75 1 y 7 2 25 3 COMPRESSED p 50 FOR X 1 TO 2 60 FOR Y 1 TO 4 0 FOR Z 1 TO 3 0 READ N IF N 0 THEN 130 0 LPRINT CHR 27 CHR 0 IF N 10 THEN LPRINT 5 OK to substitute CHR 2 for 0 00 LPRINT CHR 27 CHR N 10 LPRINT 5 IF X 2 THEN LPRINT EXPANDED p 120 LPRINT 75 7 130 NEXT 2 NEXT Y NEXT X 4 5 6 LPRINT 27 0 DATA 0 1 4 8 1 1 16 17 20 24 1 1 DATA 32 33 36 40 1 1 48 49 52 56 1 1 Figure 5 1 Master Select Program If you want to see this in underlined Italic add the following line 10 LPRINT CHR 27 1 CHR 27 SO CHR 27 4 Now when you want to use Double Strike Emphasized Expanded P
194. r more conflicting modes are active at the same time Table 4 1 shows the modes we have covered so far Table 4 1 Summary of modes Type of mode Mode name Typeface Roman default Italic Pitch Pica default Elite Compressed Expanded Weight Single Strike default Double Strike Emphasized Spacing Monospaced default Proportional Note Pitch and weight together make up print density The defaults are those set at at the factory By changing DIP switches you can change the pitch default from Pica to Compressed and the weight default from Single Strike to Emphasized Here is the DIP switch that we mentioned in this chapter Switch 1 5 Allows you to change the weight default from Single Strike to Emphasized Here are the commands that we introduced in this chapter CHR3 27 G Turns Double Strike Mode ON Double Strike prints in Half Speed CHR 27 H Turns Double Strike OFF CHR 27 E Turns Emphasized Mode ON Emphasized prints in Half Speed CHR 27 F Turns Emphasized OFF CHR 27 p1 or CHR 27 CHR 112 1 Turns Proportional Mode ON Proportional prints in Emphasized and thus Half Speed CHR 27 pO or CHR 27 CHR 112 0 Turns Proportional OFF 67 68 Chapter 5 Dress Up Modes and Master Select In the first three subsections of this chapter we cover four more print modes Underline two Script odes Superscript and Sub script and Italic Each of these modes allows
195. r personal guide in your exploration of the FX s many features u INDERL INE a o5 e ene ITALIC e 1 40 LPRINT CHR 15 cens lt 27 For a preview of what your programs can produce take a look at the following potpourri of print modes and graphics HAPPY PRINTING EPSON AMERICA LNC 5 e Ca e PICA SINGLE STRIKE 1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMN DOUBLE STRIKE 1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMN SINGLE STRIKE EMPHASIZED 123454789 ABC DOUBLE STRIKE EMPHASIZED 123456789 ABC SINGLE STRIKE EMPHASIZED PROPORTIONAL 1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKL MNOPORSTUVWXYZabcde fghi tt EF xR AMDE 1 LSS pte DS EXPANDED 1234567 EXP EMPHASIZED 7 DS EXP EMPHASIZED 1 UNDERLINE 1234567 sumscrrer izsa5eoz 4 SUPERSCRIPT xrzseocez ITALICS 1234367 ELITE SINGLE STRIKE 1234557890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPORSTUV DOUBLE STRIKE 1234547890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPARSTUV SS EXFANDED 123454787 A DS EXPANDED 1234567890A UNDERLINE 12345578908 eunecrret 2 4 SUPERSCRIPT 123545678908 ITALICS 12345678984 COMPRESSED SINGLE STRIKE 123455789 0ABCDEFGHIJKLNNOPORSTUVWIYZabcdefghijklanop DOUBLE STRIKE 123456789 ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPORSTUVWXYZabcdefghi jklanop SS EXPANDED 123456789 ABCDEFGHIJK DS EXPANDED 125456789U0ABCDEFGHIJK UNDERLINE 123456789QABCDEFGHIJK sumscmiPr 12 SUPERSCRIPT 12545676
196. rde in an array is to dose the loops and display the contents of the array Add these three lines to your program 50LPRENT A R C NEXT C LPRINT 60PRINT ROW R NEXT R 170 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END and RUN it BSSSGGQ8rr rrr ee 5 656 5 SSSe86r SESERBBSErYKRSEESES SSSSBrSSBSBSBSESEGSSSBSE SBES SSG GSESSEBEBEGESERBSEESRB GEES S SSSGSESEESSBSESEHESESESE S 6 FPSSSBSEBSESESESGEESESESBSEEY SGGGGG5EGEGGGGGEG GGGGGGOC S SSSSBYGBEEBSERBSESHESES BSBEES SBSESSGErr GRBSEEESEEr BSESESE GBEGERBESAS Figure 13 6 Displaying an array The printout shows in terms of ones and zeros the results of your planning and your program s plotting Ones become dots Next you need to translate the contents of the array to dots on the paper First modify line 50 so that it no longer prints out the contents of the array 50NEXT C Then fill the usual graphics prescription for 7 dot line spacing 70 L
197. rial this large program demonstrates the way you can use several of the techniques you have learned within a single application 231 cec 1u212101G I 2 STRATA SOFTWARE 5 80 TRACK DRIVE DATA TOWN U S A 01248 PHONE FX1 0080 ACCOUNT NO DATE AMOUNT REMITTED PLEASE DETACH AND RETURN WITH YOUR PAYMENT DATE INVOICE NO DESCRIPTION CHARGES PAYMENTS BALANCE 30DAYS 60DAYS 90DAYS AMOUNT DUE STRATA SOFTWARE THANK YOU Since this program uses many of the routines from the BAR CHART program above begin by loading that program Many of its lines need no changes induding 110 120 150 and 799 1010 Delete lines 10 to 90 Make small changes to four lines 100 DIM A 18 LPRINT CHR 27 3 CHRS 20 CHRS 27 01 130 LPRINT CHR 27 S CHR 0 at 140 FOR 1 TO 20 LPRINT CHR 139 160 NEXT Y LPRINT CHR 27 C CHR 66 GOSUB 700 Lines 130 and 140 specify the number 20 and locations ASCII a t of user defined characters Line 160 sets the form length to 66 lines and top of form to the current position of the print head and sends the program to line 700 where the logo subroutine begins You can check your changes against the complete listing of STATE MENT that appears as Figure 17 4 That listing also gives you the lines that are new such lines fall into two long sections 170 to 770 1099 to 1370 Enter them one at a time repl
198. roduces Elite pitch is set with an ESCape M Try it in this program NEW 10 LPRINT CHR 27 M 20 LPRINT COMPARE ELITE PITCH WITH THE PICA BELOW 52 60 columns inch 72 columns inch Figure 3 5 Pica and Elite letters LPRINT CHR 27 P 0 PRINT PICA PITCH IS THE NORMAL PRINT WIDTH When you RUN it you should ge COMPARE ELITE PITCH WITH THE PICA BELOW PICA PITCH IS THE NORMAL PRINT WIDTH Figure 3 6 Pitch comparison 10 blank spaces in line 20 above print as 10 Elite spaces the 10 corresponding spaces in line 40 print as Pica spaces This means as you can see in Figure 3 6 that the different width modes affect spaces as wel as characters The modes also affect tabs which we will discuss in Chapter 9 The ESCape P in line 30 turns Elite Mode off and returns the printer to Pica pitch Notice that because Pica is the factory set default it comes on whenever you turn the printer on unless you ve changed the pitch default by changing a DIP switch Compressed Mode To see a third handy print pitch that is available on FX printers replace your current program with this 53 NEW 20 LPRINT CHR 15 COMPRESSED MODE IS SET WITH CHR 15 30 LPRINT IT WILL STAY ON UNTIL YOU CANCEL IT 40 LPRINT 18 AGAIN COMPRESSED MODE IS SET WITH CHR 15 IT WILL STAY ON UNTIL YOU CANCEL IT PICA AGAIN Notice that we had you u
199. room for more features Unfortunately some designers did not anticipate that printers would make use of this extended range So they designed BASIC printer drivers that intercept any number in the upper half of the range 128 255 and automatically convert it to the lower half of the range by subtracting 128 In these systems such a code as CHR 193 never makes it to the printer The printer driver subtracts 128 which means that the code for Italic A gets to the printer as a CHR 65 The printer then produces a Roman A For many applications you won t need the upper half of the ASCII codes For others the inability to generate codes greater than 127 will be an obstacle Whenever we can we suggest ways to get around this obstacle In Chapter 5 for instance we discuss Italic Mode which is the FX designers method of making Italic characters easily accessible to all users If you re patting yourself on the back because your printer printed an Italic A postpone your celebration for a bit Nearly all computers BASIC programs intercept codes on their way to the printer and alter some of them For example some popular systems intercept a 10 feed and send out a CHRS 13 carriage return instead Typical problem codes involve the numbers 0 and 9 to 13 Y our computer manual may alert you to these problems Or experi ence may have to be your guide In order to help computer systems that can t send a zero in a CHR com
200. rs in RAM with 180 LPRINT EPSON Oops Where is the rest of EPSON All right we confess the only characters in the user defined RAM are those you put there yourself Characters that haven t been defined print as blank spaces So the 206 RAM area is like a big blank chalk board waiting for you to fill it up Atthis point because you have only defined an E that s all you get from RAM Downloading Command Wouldn t it be nice if you could magically transport some of the ROM characters over to the RAM area so you wouldn t have to switch back and forth or define an entire character set each time you use the RAM area In plenty of applications you only need to define a few special characters to be used with the standard alphabet and num bers That s why the FX provides the option of copying sometimes called downloading the entire ROM set into the user defined RAM area The downloading command has the format LPRINT CHR 27 n CHRS n nj This command is designed with possible future expansion in mind For now set all three numbers to 110 LPRINT CHRS 27 CHRS 0 0 0 Berson Now you get your custom designed E plus four of the normal charac ters copied over from ROM Notice that the E is lower on the page than the other characters even though the high order bit of the attribute byte is on In order to save 7 bit users from total frustration we designed the character
201. rse feed on See Line feed ESCape 1 CHR n Sets left margin See Margins ESCape pO Turns Proportional Mode off See Proportional Mode ESCape pl Turns Proportional Mode See Proportional Mode ESCape 50 Returns to normal after Half Speed Mode See Half Speed Mode ESCape s1 Turns Half Speed Mode on See Half Speed Mode Expanded Mode 56 59 ESCape W1 turns Continuous Expanded Mode on ESCape W0 turns it off CHR 14 turns one line Expanded Mode on CHR 20 turns it off compared with Emphasized Mode 63 Exponent character vi 243 Firing of pins See pins FE See Form feed Foreign language characters See International character set Form feed 103 105 CHR 12 produces one button See also Top of form Forms length of 103 107 ESCape C CHR 0 CHR n sets length to n inches ESCape sets to n lines ESCape resets to default and sets top of form to current line non standard 105 107 See also Form feed Top of form Friction control lever Friction feed 28 29 Function switches See DIP switches G Graphics densities in See Graphics Mode designing 154 155 159 171 189 196 line 225 226 plotter 173 187 problem codes with 144 145 Reset Code with 144 troubleshooting 302 303 with seven bit systems 311 width of 134 135 193 See also Graphics Mode Graphics Mode 134 135 density command 145 149 150 ESCape CHR m C
202. s called a line feed and the distance is called a line space The ability to change line spac ing is vital to printing graphics as you will see in later chapters Line Spacing Each line feed must move the paper a specific distance but that distance need not remain the same for every application or even every line The FX gives you three types of commands to change the size of a line space You can use one type to select the most common sizes You can use a second type of command to vary line spacing in 72nds of an inch And you can use the third to adjust lines microscopically in 216ths of an inch Preset line spacing The default setting for one line space is 1 6inch which produces 6 print lines per inch Since this size of line feed is equivalent to 12 rows of dots in the standard character matrix Figure 7 1 we call this 12 dot line spadng When you have been using another size of line spacing and want to return to 12 dot you use this code ESCape 2 93 e TT Default line spacing Figure 7 1 To see 12 dot spacing reset the printer to clear any previous modes and enter NEW 0 to 4 30LPRINT TAB 40 NE 20 FOR X 6 X STAIR STEPS XT X L STAIR STEFS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEFS STAIR STEFS STEFS STAIR 94 Your first STEPS print in 12 dot spadng Now tighten up the line spacing by adding lines 10 and 50 10 LPRINT CHRS 27 0 50 LPRINT CHR 27 2 S
203. s corresponds to one pass of the print head making it easier to calculate the pin patterns Here is the DATA line for the first row Be sure to enter the line numbers exactly as shown Type NEW 800 DATA 0 1 2 4 11 18 36 72 16 16 64 8 64 8 32 16 0 7 0 0 128 The program s handling of the data is fairly straightforward In most cases the program merely reads a number and sends it to the printer To make this happen add three lines 610 READ N IF N 128 THEN 650 620 IF N gt THEN PRINT CHR N GOTO 610 650 LPRINT Since 127 is the largest number that can fire seven pins you will place a 128 at the end of each DATA line as a stopper number to signal the end of the print line Line 610 tests for a stopper When it reads an N of 128 it passes control to line 650 which produces the necessary line feed This makes line 650 the only exit from the continu ous loop 160 4 d uH NEM Figure 12 1 STRATA layout In most cases the program reads a number greater than or equal to line 620 Control then returns to line 610 which reads the next number zero and sends it to the printer If N is negative the program bypasses the LPRINT in line 620 and goes on to line 630 N egative numbers in the DATA lines represent repeat factors as they did in the last chapter but the repeat routine is slightly different This program repeats numbers in
204. s many other ways you can change the looks of the type and we discuss these tech niques in the next three chapters Summary The FX uses a dot matrix to plot the characters it prints Vertically the matrix consists of 6 main and 5 intermediate columns Horizon tally the matrix consists of 9 rows Appendix A shows how each of the FX s characters fits into this matrix Using these potential positions the print head is capable of printing in a large variety of modes In this chapter we introduced three sets of commands that add five pitches widths to the factory se default Pica You can change the default to Compressed by changing DIP Switch 1 1 Table 3 1 shows six pitch modes their densities in characters per inch and the commands you use to turn them on In this table we assume that you are using Pica as the default If you have changed to Compressed you activate Pica with CHR 18 59 Table 3 1 Summary of print pitches Print sample CPI Entry code FICA PRINT 10 00 ELITE PRINT 12 00 CHR 27 M COMPRESSED PRINT 17 16 CHR 15 We AnD ED EIZA FF EXPANDED CHR 27 W1 ELITE PRINT CHR 27 M EXPANDED bees COMPRESSED PRINT 858 CHRS 27 WI CHRS 15 5 00 CHR 27 W1 or CHR 14 Here is the DIP switch that we mentioned in this chapter Switch 1 1 Allows you to change the pitch default from Pica to Compressed Here is a list of the commands that we
205. s of 3 as shown in Figure 14 2 1 Repeat of 4 111000011111000011119901110001 NMS 0to MAX N Figure 14 2 Pattern sets Before proceeding delete line 5 and modify line 110 so that it prints to the screen instead of to the printer 110 FOR 1 TO C PRINT A K NEXT PRINT PRINT C C 191 Pin Pattern Calculation You will use the one line array that you just created to generate a two dimensional pattern This technique results in a significant saving of memory compared to the method of generating an array that we used in the last chapter Two patterns are used in each pass of the print head P is the pattern formed by the seven vertical dots at the start of each print line and PO is its black white reverse image The program prints the pattern P in each column that is headed by a black dot Pattern PO is printed in the other columns The pin patterns are created this way 140 FOR PASS 0 TO LAST P 0 PRINT PASS PASS OF LAST 160 FOR DOT TO H 170 IF A 7 PASS DOT 1 1 THEN P P42 6 DOT 180 NEXT DOT 190 P0 127 P IF PASS LAST THEN P0 P0 1 2 7 R For each pass of the print head zero to LAST the program calculates the pin patterns seven dots at a time Line 170 calculates P and line 190 calculates its complement PO Appendix F discusses problem codes and the P variable Adjust the line spacing to match the y dot passes 120 LPRINT CHRS 27
206. se only CHR I5 to turn Compressed Mode on that is we didn t have you type in an ESCape code first If you prefer consistency to brevity you may add one and use ESCape CHR 15 to get the same effect f 2 y VA WD STR As do most other print modes on FX printers Compressed stays on until you turn it off And thereis a specific codethat turns Com pressed M ode off CH R 18 The Reset Code would work just as well but remember that it also resets all other current printer modes to the defaults The FX gives you a choice of resetting codes one at a time or all at once At 17 16 characters per inch Compressed Mode is the narrowest character pitch available on FX printers FX 80 users can fit 132 Com pressed characters into each line up to 137 by changing the right mar gin setting see Chapter 9 FX 100 users can get 233 Compressed characters per print line Compressed Mode is especially useful for printing spreadsheets or reports that require several columns of infor mation If you find yourself using this pitch more often than not you can change the default pitch from Pica to Compressed Mode by setting 54 DIP switch 1 1 This adjustment will make the printer reset to Compressed Mode after which you can switch to other modes as needed You could get Pica Mode with control codes for instance by using the Compressed shut off code CH R 18 Then you could return to Compressed wi
207. se you will use this line printing routine lines 160 180 again to print the bottom three lines of the figure we have you set it aside as a subroutine It is called by the GOSUB in line 20 and separated from the rest of the program by the END in line 150 So far so good Now for the rest of the figure The following lines control the four step process 80 FOR 1 TO L LPRINT CHR 1 NEXT X 100 LPRINT CHRS 1 2 4 CHRS 8 CHR 16 CHRS 32 CHRS 64 110 FOR X 1 TO H LPRINT CHR 64 NEXT X 120 LPRINT CHR 64 CHRS 32 CHRS 16 CHRS 8 CHRS 4 CHRS 2 CHRS 1 Lines 100 and 120 print the 7 dot rise and fall The lengths of the low and high sections are stored in DATA statements then read into the variables L and H Line 80 prints the bottom pin L times line 110 prints the top pin H times The next step is to add the READ portion of the program 50 READ L H 60 L L 7 H H 7 70 IF L 0 THEN 90 90 IF H 0 THEN LPRINT GOTO 150 130 GOTO 50 Line 50 reads numbers from the data statements in pairs the first is stored into L the second into H L and H are then each multiplied by seven this extends the width of the figure without increasing the size of the data numbers This enlargement factor must be the same as the number of dots in the rise and fall or the design will not line up properly 166 If L is read as zero line 70 causes the program to ignore line 80 This enables the printer t
208. shade more difficult than firing 7 or 8 pins It takes 2 bytes to define each 9 dot pin pattern the first byte determines the pattern of the top 8 pins in the usual way and only the top bit of the second byte is used Thus any second byte of 128 or greater fires the bottom pin of the print head anything less does not Try this sample program 20 AS CHRS 27 CHRS 94 0 CHRS 60 CHRS 0 30 BS CHRS 85 CHRS 0 170 CHRS 128 60 LPRINT A FOR X 1 TO 30 LPRINT B NEXT X 80 LPRINT 27 Figure 11 6 Printout using bottom Compare this with the densities in Figure 11 4 this one is Single Density Look dosely at Figure 11 6 you ll see that the bottom pin prints in every other column If you want to see Double Density change the first 0 of line 20 to a 1 For fans of 9 Pin Graphics the CHR 27 0 line spacing is ideal it sets the line spacing to 9 72 inch 9 dot Pin Combination Patterns The next phase in printing graphics is to arrange pin firing sequences into meaningful designs Figure 11 7 shows how you might design a dot pattern on graph paper In Figure11 7 weshow on the side of the figurethe pin labels for each row of dots At the bottom of each column we show the sum of those labels These sums are the numbers you send to print this pat tern Once you ve calculated the numbers for a pin pattern you can store them in DATA statements You separate items in a DATA stateme
209. sing down and sideways with the palm of your hand Figure 1 8 Do not replace the screw because in the course of this manual we will sometimes suggest that you reset switches Keep the screw in a safe spot so that you can replace it later Locate the two DIP switch assemblies as shown in Figure 1 9 and check that they are set as shown in Figure 1 10 20 KA Boy Figure 1 8 DIP switch vent These switches are set at the factory and most of them you will never need to touch You may however want to take the time now to match up the switches with their functions as shown in Table 1 1 For a further discussion of the DIP switches see Appendix E c PEERS Js ai asi E vod Figure 2 20 DIP switch factory settings Always turn the power off with the switch on the left side of the printer before touching any internal switch The printer checks most switch settings only at power up If you make changes when the power is on they may be ignored until you turn the printer off then back on So set all switches with the power off Use a non metallic object such as the back of a pen to change the DIP switches One switch deserves your immediate attention it is the switch labelled 4 switch assembly 2 This switch let s call it 2 4 adjusts the automatic line feed the movement of the paper up one line at the end of each print line to match your computer system s needs 22 Table
210. stings easier to read If you are not going to create your own characters turn switch 1 4 on to take advantage of the internal 2K buffer Ribbon installation First be sure the printer is turned off and move the print head to the middle of the platen Remove the ribbon cartridge from its packing materials Holding the cartridge by the plastic fin on the top guide the pair of tabs at each 23 end of the cartridge into the corresponding slots in the printer frame Figure 1 11 The cartridge should snap neatly into place With the paper bail resting on the platen you can tuck the ribbon between the metal ribbon guide and the black print head As Figure 1 11 suggests you can ease the ribbon into place with the deft application of a dull pendl To remove any slack in the ribbon turn the ribbon knob in the direction of the arrow Note When you replace a ribbon remember that the print head may be hot from usage be careful Paper Loading How you load your paper depends on which model of FX you have and which type of paper and feeder you are using This section covers each type of paper loading and then illustrates the top of form posi tion on both models Both the FX 80 and the FX 100 indude tractors so that you can use continuous feed paper with pin feed holes and friction mechanisms so that you can use paper without these holes Continuous feed paper usually comes fanfolded into a box and has pin feed holes arranged on hal
211. sure that both 29 sides of the tractor assembly are firmly in place Rock the front of the unit downward pressing firmly until it locks into place ARS Figure 1 16 Tractor unit installation Figure 1 17 Hook and stud 30 To load the paper into the unit use this procedure Be sure the printer is turned off then open the front protective lid to move the print head to the middle of the platen Pull the paper bail and the friction control lever toward the front of the printer refer back to Figure 1 12 Insert the paper under the paper separator and the platen and push the paper through to the front Position the pin feeders using the pin feed locking levers to make the adjustment One is shown in Figure 1 18 Raise the black covers of both pin feeders and ease the paper over the pins Adjust the paper or pin feeders as necessary so that there are no wrinkles or dips in the paper Now you are ready to set the top of form Pin feed locking lever Figure 1 18 Adjusting the pin feeders 31 Top of form position After you have loaded the paper you should set it to the top of form which is the position of the print head when you turn the printer on Since the computer term form corresponds to the word page it may be easier for you to think of this as the top of the page To make this setting advance the paper until a perforation lies slightly below the top of the ribbon The relationship between the
212. t Tabs with text and numbers Variable horizontal tabs Absolute horizontal tabs Ordinary vertical tabs Text at tab amp Absolute vertical tabs Printout of multipage channels Pins numbered sequentially Dot pattern in two line spacings Pins labelled uniquely Pin combinations High Speed DoubleDensity dots No overlapping 0 Overlapping dots Seven density Ninepin Printout using bottom pin Curling design mE Ses 106 ele 92 m A In RIS AIN m N ooh ARE 12 1 STRATA layout 12 2 STRATA logo 12 3 STRATA program 12 4 Corner of the FX 80 12 5 FX 80 figure 12 6 Program for FX 80 figure 12 7 100 coco cece cance dacs odes nana a
213. t change the size so that you can see the full impact of the figure note that 105 isa multiple of seven 10 DEFINT A N 105 DIM A N N Yes that 105 means this will take even longer to print out than the circle did but that s the price you pay for largeness If your computer system requires a WIDTH statement to prevent the printer from issuing a carriage return before the graphics line is complete add it now 7 WIDTH LPRINT 255 The format for this statement may be different for your BASIC see your software documentation Next modify the distance formula slightly Type 30 D SQR R 24C 2 N 184 This adjustment makes it easier to compare the distance value with the value of the RND function line 40 below Once the computer knows the distance of each cell from the upper left corner it can usethe following test to determine which cells receive 15 and which cells continue to contain Os 40 IF D gt RND 9 THEN A R C 1 Line 40 compares the modified distance D of each cell to a random number between O and 1 If D is greater than the random number a 1 goes in that cell Note Use your computer system s version of RN D 9 in line 40 some systems use RND X or just RND By using a random number line 40 you add a measure of uncer tainty to the placement of the dots Cells dose to the upper left comer of the square array have a high probability of containing a zero while those far away have a high pro
214. ta line corresponds to one pin on the print head Thus each byte sent will fire up to eight pins But the printer has 9 pins available So how do you firethe ninth pin with only 8 data lines In fact do you really want to bother with just one extra pin Well for such graphics intensive applications as screen dumps printing 9 pins at a time can speed up the process considerably For this purpose the FX has a spedal 9 Pin Graphics Mode it won t however work with 7 bit computer systems In this mode the printer takes 2 bytes to fire all 9 pins as shown in Figure 11 5 Since computers are faster than printers there is no significant time loss in printing a single line of graphics with 9 pins You get 9 dots per line in about the same time as you get 8 dots in the other Graphics Modes Not a bad deal The format for entering 9 Pin Graphics Mode is LPRINT 27 d n n 152 First byte Second byte Figure 11 5 Nine pin usage Use CHR 94 if you can t generate the caret symbol from your system The d determines the density of the graphics d set to 0 produces Single Density d set to 1 produces Double Density In this format n and n represent the usual width settings but each print pattern requires two bytes instead of one This means that when you want to print 60 columns of graphics you must send 120 data bytes 153 Firing 9 pins with 8 data lines is just a
215. tch 2 3 to the on position and the printer will automatically skip over the perforation We discuss this further in Chapter 8 Meanwhile printing a program LISTing is a fundamental function of the printer Be sure you manage this before continuing if you have trouble consult your computer s manual for help BASIC Communications Part of the difficulty in controlling communications between com puter and printer is the lack of a completely standard coding scheme When your computer sends out a numeric code for the letter A you naturally want your printer to interpret that code as an A Most man ufacturers of computers printers and software use the American Standard Code for Information Interchange ASCII pronounced ask ee to code such frequently used characters as the letters of the alpha bet numerals and keyboard symbols Of the 256 ASCII numbers most are codes for specific characters some are codes for such com puter or printer functions as sounding a beep or performing a carriage return The ASCII standard does not yet allow for the advanced features in today s computers and printers Individual manufacturers therefore adjust the codes to suit their own needs which means that we are often faced with compatibility problems between printers and com puters To compare your computer s version of the ASCII table with the FX s version see your computer manual and this manual s Appen dix A You can usually overcome the code
216. te byte of each new character 70 Reads the data that defines the letters 11 sets of II See Chapter 15 for additional information on lines 30 through 70 80 Turns on the Unidirectional Print Mode 90 Prints the top of the ticket and sets the line spacing to 6 72 inch 100 Prints the newly defined symbol 7 left ticket border tabs to the next stop prints the other border 9 and sets the line spacing back to 7 72 inch 10 110 Prints the outside border then the top of the inside border which was defined as the character 120 Prints another line of borders 130 Prints more borders then uses the Master Select to turn on Emphasized Double Strike Pica Also turns on Italic and Under line Modes 140 Prints TICKET TO SUCCESS then resets the FX to its defaults including Pica but does not affect the redefined characters 150 Produces two more border lines 160 Prints the upper half of the FX letters in Expanded Emphasized printing The user defined character 0 produces the top of the F and 2 produces the top of the X 170 Turns off Expanded and Emphasized Modes and prints SERIES in Superscript Mode and then prints the right side of the border 180 Prints the bottom half of the FX letters 190 Turns OFF the codes prints PRINTERS in Subscript then prints a border 200 Prints borders 210 Prints borders then switches to Compressed and prints BY Sets with ESCape X Emphasized Double Strike Pica and prints
217. ters ESCape E produces what we call Emphasized print As in Double Strike each character gets two sets of dots In Emphasized however the print head does not make two passes and does not move down the page Instead it slows down so that it can print overlapping dots and prints each dot twice the second time slightly to the right of the first as illustrated in Figure 4 2 To see Emphasized add these lines to your program 30LPRINT CHR 27 EEMPHASIZED ADDS A TOUCH OF CLASS 60 LPRINT CHRS 27 62 DOUBLE STRIKE PRINT IS DARKER THAN SINGLE STRIKE EMPHASIZED ADDS A TOUCH OF CLASS That s right Emphasized is very similar to Expanded print except that Expanded Mode prints a duplicate set of dots a full rather than a half column to the right of the initial set Figure 4 2 shows Expanded and Emphasized characters ER e a P TP w 4 4 PPP n r ow x r 4 PSP I B 11111 M 4 TI ie TP Figure 4 2 Expanded and Emphasized letters Although the print head slows to half normal speed i e 80 cps in Emphasized Mode the increase in print quality is well worth it If you like Emphasized so well that you want to useit for most of your printouts you can set it as a default with DIP switch 1 5 This adjust ment will make the printer automatically reset to Emphasized Mode after which you can switch to other modes as needed Whether you turn Emphasized on wit
218. th either of the usual commands CHR 15 or ESCape or by turning the printer off and back on M ode priorities These first three pitches Pica 10 cpi Elite 12 cpi and Com pressed 17 16 cpi are mutually exdusive That is only one can be in use at a given time When a program activates conflicting modes one of them will take precedence In the case of Elite Compressed and Pica Modes for example Elite has the highest priority To check this try RUNning this line in your current program In this example and many others throughout the manual we use the format that com bines the command with the print string The printer will interpret the letter M as part of the command and will not print it This format is further explained in the preface 10 LPRINT CHR 27 MELITE PITCH ELITE PITCH COMPRESSED MODE IS SET WITH CHR 15 IT WILL STAY ON UNTIL YOU CANCEL IT PICA AGAIN This time the printer doesn t make it to Compressed M ode Y our entire printout is in Elite pitch even though Compressed Mode is turned on in line 20 Does that mean the printer ignores the CHR 15 when it is in Elite Mode Let s find out Change line 30 to read 30 LPRINT 27 PCANCEL ELITE TO SEE COMPRESSED ELITE PITCH COMPRESSED MODE IS SET WITH CHR 15 CANCEL ELITE TO SEE COMPRESSED PICA AGAIN ESCape P did cancel Elite Mode which caused line 30 s text to print in Compressed So the printer did recognize the command for Com
219. the line spacing makes All of the multipleline graphics programs in this manual use this line spacing Diamond pattern In this next and final version of the program you exercise even more control over the slashes This program varies not only their direction but also their sizes length and height on the print line Although the program still uses only one subroutine it prints 24 different patterns 12 on each of the 2 print lines The differences in the patterns are achieved by IF THEN tests in a subroutine To get the final listing add line 100 and changelines 10 30 40 50 80 90 and 120 10 LPRINT CHRS 27 1 20 FOR 1 1 30 FOR J 0 T 40 LPRINT CHRS S 27 K CHRS 27 CHRS 0 50 GOSUB 80 60 70 80 9 NEXT J LPRINT NEXT L LPRINT CHR 27 Q END FOR 1 TO 6 Y X IF J 1 THEN 0 FOR 7 0 TO Y 2 IF J 1 THEN 00 IF L 2 THEN N 7 N 110 LPRINT CHR 2 N 120 NEXT Z NEXT X RETURN KN aK rn If you didn t watch the printing when you ran this program the printout may not make it obvious that there are two lines of print but there are The first line prints slashes by moving from bottom to top and then from top to bottom whereas the second line prints the slashes first from top to bottom and then from bottom to top And how do the IF TH EN statements fit into the picture The one in line 80 changes the length of the slashes The one in line 90 controls the direction and height The IF THEN
220. the tractor cover by using the hinge posts at the front of the printer opening This arrangement allows you to easily raise and lower the cover to load paper or ribbon To install the cover hold it at its full vertical position Slide the right hinge fitting over the right hinge post and set the left 18 fitting over its post Lower the cover To remove the cover move it to its full vertical position and then lift it up and a little to the left Figure 1 5 Protective lids Figure 1 6 Tractor cover Manual feed knob The manual feed knob Figure 1 7 can aid you in loading and adjusting paper To install the manual feed knob hold it in position on 19 the right side and twist until the flat sides of rod and fitting match Push the knob straight in with a steady pressure To remove pull straight out Figure 1 7 Manual feed knob DIP switches Several tiny switches called DIP for Dual In line Package switches are located inside the FX They control a number of impor tant printer functions such as line feed adjustment the paper out sen sor the beeper and the default print modes You can check these switches now or you can skip to the ribbon section and check the switches later The design of the FX printer allows easy access to the internal Switches They are located under the upper right vent To remove the vent you need a Phillip s head screwdriver Once the top screw is removed take the vent off by pres
221. the user defined characters in RAM by deleting lines 2 through 8 and adding the following unless yours is a 7 bit system in which case this won t work 130 LPRINT 27 amp 0 128 131 140 FOR 1 TO 4 LPRINT 139 165 LPRINT CHR 27 6 180 LPRINT 128 129 CHRS 130 131 1140 DATA 0 126 1 2 4 8 4 2 1 126 0 My W W ARS The low order control codes can also be defined but not all of them can be printed with ease CHR 27 I1 makes them printable and CHRS 27 10 returns them to normal Just as the higher control codes hide the Italic international charac ters the lower control codes hide the Roman international characters Let s see how the CHR 27 I1 and CHR 27 I0 codes work with user defined characters Change 130 LPRINT CHRS 27 amp CHRS 0 CHRS 1 CHRS 3 140 FOR 1 TO 3 LPRINT 139 165 LPRINT CHR 27 I1 180 LPRINT CHRS 1 2 3 209 And add 1100 DATA 0 121 0 73 0 73 0 73 0 79 0 5 1110 DATA 0 127 0 05 0 05 0 05 0 127 0 Oh S OW The program now contains six DATA lines but it uses only the first three The three characters are stored in ASCII codes 1 2 and 3 in RAM they are printed by line 180 Not all of the low order O 31 control codes can be changed to print as normal characters nor would you want them to Imagine if you changed code 27 to print as a
222. ting See Double Strike Emphasized Proportional Bracket See Exponent character Buffer See Printer buffer Business applications 227 238 Byte Attribute See User defined characters 239 Cable CANCel Caret symbol See Exponent character Carriage return CHR 13 produces it See also Line feed Centronics See Interface Channels See Tabs vertical Character fonts shown 253 270 See also User defined characters Character size 256 270 327 See also specific pitches by name Character string function See CHR function CHR function See 8150 ASCII codes CHR 7 Sounds beeeper See Beeper CHR 8 Produces backspace See Backspace CHR 9 Activates a horizontal tab See Tabs CHR 10 Produces a line feed See Line feed CHR 11 Activates a vertical tab See Tabs CHR 12 Produces a form feed See Form feed CHR 13 Produces a carriage return See Carriage return CHR 14 Turns One Line Expanded Mode on See Expanded Mode CHR 15 Turns Compressed Mode on See Compressed Mode CHR I8 Turns Compressed Mode off See Compressed Mode CHR 20 Turns One Line Expanded Mode off See Expanded Mode CHR 27 ESCape code See ESCape CHR 127 Deletes See DELete CHR 137 Alternate code to activate horizontal tab See Tabs Circle plotting 177 184 Circuit board See Interface Codes See ASCII codes Control codes Escape CHR function Coding solutions 306 309 Columns for ROM character set 50 52 for User defined characters
223. tion Paper Loading 24 FX 80 built in tractor feed FX 80 and FX 100 friction FX 80 and FX 100 removable tractor unit optional on the FX 80 Top of formi position Paper thickness Staring UD ssa sank saca dace RC x Control pana The FX tests i oret atm dd acie det b vii 2 BASIC and the Printer een BASIC Communications Character StringS BASIC pri nt commands ASCII and BASIC Control COES si es cei di cr ik II RR Rn Escape CH R 27 and other CHR commands Change Commands Reset RACER RR Mode cancelling codes eee nnn DELete CANce Alternate Formats for ESCape Sequences ora ados Bid 3 Prnt Pitches een nnne Dot Matrix Printi ng eee Inh Main columns Intermediate positions Modes for Pitches Pica and Elite Modes Compressed Mode priorities Pitch Mode Combinations
224. tional Mode It tells the printer in which columns to start and stop printing for each character If you label the 11 columns deter 203 mined by the data numbers as columns 0 to 10 then in Proportional Mode the minimum and maximum starting and stopping columns will be 0 and 11 Why 11 instead of 10 Column 11 is the maximum value because Proportional characters are always Emphasized this makes each character wider by one intermediate column So when defining your own characters for proportional printing always reserve one extra column Suppose you want a character to start in column 1 and end in col umn 10 How do you put this information into the attribute byte The starting column number 1 is converted to a 3 bit binary number 001 and stored in bits 4 5 and 6 of the attribute byte The ending column number 10 is converted to a 4 bit binary number 1010 and stored in bits 0 to 3 The conversions are shown in Figure 15 5 1 Top 8 pins 1 1 starting column 8 N Attribute byte 1 0 4 10 Ending column f 1 0 1 1 128 64 32 16 2 2 Figure 15 5 Attribute byte conversions 128 154 decimal value The full 8 bit attribute byte then is composed of three parts 1 Bit 7 determines which pins are used to print the character 2 Bits 4 5 and 6 determine the starting column number 3 Bits 0 1 2 and 3 determine the ending column number
225. to use the bottom seven rows If you do not have a 7 bit system you can use the top seven rows for all but lower case characters with descenders Caution Be very careful about using the Reset Code after defining your own characters in RAM This code wipes out the entire contents of RAM goodbye user defined characters Defining M ore Characters Once the ESCape sequences are in place adding more characters is a breeze To see how much of a breeze simply add more data 1150 DATA 7 8 16 36 64 36 16 8 7 0 0 My A 1160 DATA 127 0 72 0 72 0 76 2 121 0 0 My R 207 and make these changes 130 LPRINT 27 amp CHRS 0 rt 140 FOR 1 TO 3 LPRINT 139 160 NEXT Y 180 LPRINT rst A R E Line 130 controls the reading of the data It expects data for three characters s and t This example uses lowercase characters If essary you can use CHR 114 and CHR I16 in place of the rt The attribute byte for each character is sent in line 140 and the other 11 bytes are read from DATA lines This method is nice for quick and easy character definition If you intend to print your characters in Proportional Mode you ll want to add a different attribute byte to the start of each DATA line and adjust the READ routine for 12 numbers Don t forge the attribute byte or you ll end up with results you won t like Redefining Control Codes For some of you dedicated users the range from 32to 1
226. tribute byte with 203 204 206 Protective lids See lids Q Quadruple Density See Graphics Mode Quiet printing See Half Speed Mode QX 10 34 Hoe 314 315 R RAM Random Access Memo p DIP switch control of See also Printer buffer User defined characters READ statement See DATA statement REMarks in program lines v vi Reset Code Resetting See Reset Code RESTORE statement 155 156 Reverse line feed See Line feed Ribbon installation and replacement 23 25 life 16 65 328 Right margin See Margins Roll paper See Paper ROM Read Only Memory Rows See Columns 248 Schematic 331 Script Mode 71 72 ESCape 50 turns Superscript Mode on ESCape 51 turns Subscript Mode on ESCape T turns either Script Mode off Self test for printer See Test Semicolons Eds Sensor See p sensor Separator paper See paper Serial board See Interface Set up operations for printer 13 36 Seven bit systems 309 311 graphics with 311 limitations of 321137 309 310 test for computer s type 309 user defined characters with 202 D02 205 207 209 Single sheet printing 109 110 Skip over perforation 107 109 ESCape N or DIP switch 2 4 turns it on ESCape O turns it off Space See Blank space Spacing See Line spacing Proportional spacing Special characters Specifications See Technical specifications Spread sheet printing 321 Statement program 231 238 STOP See END Subscript See S
227. uce in this chapter Italic characters are printed in a completely different typeface than are the more usual Roman characters Appendix A shows the dot matrix pat terns used to define both Roman and Italic characters along with their corresponding ASCII numbers As you saw in Chapter 2 the Italic characters numbering begins in the top half of the ASCII range at 160 to be exact And some computer systems won t let the numbers of the top half through to the printer 72 Whether your computer system is one of these or not with ESCape 4 you can print Italic characters Prove it by adding these lines to your program 10 LPRINT 27 4 70 LPRINT CHR 27 Q BUPERECRIPT AND sueSCRIPT CAN EVEN GO ON THE SANE LINE When you want to turn off only the Italic Mode you use ESCape 5 instead of line 70 s Reset Code in your program More Mode Combinations With all the handsome print types we ve covered up to this point you re probably wondering how many different print combinations are waiting in your FX Well hang onto your hat By combining the various print modes the FX can print text in 128 type styles Instead of counting these one by one we ll begin by describing a special FX feature the Master Select which lets you choose any one of 16 popular mode combinations more simply than by calling up each mode separately Then we ll demonstrate mixing Master Select choices with the modes of this chapter Maste
228. ven or eight rows tall For each graphics figure you must first enter one of the seven versions of Graphics Mode and then tell the printer the number of columns you wish to print on each line In other words you specify the density of the dots Here is the format for entering Single Density Graphics M ode 60 dots per inch LPRINT CHRS 27 K CHRS n CHR n The two number slots and n determine the number of columns reserved for graphics Why two numbers instead of one To get around a limitation of the BASIC CHR function which with only one reservation slot would not let you print a figure across the entire width of the page An amp inch page can hold up to 480 Single Density graphics dots per row But since the BASIC CHR function is limited to numbers from 0 to 255 you can t send a number as large as 480 directly to the printer That s where the second number slot fits in You use the two sets of numbers together to send large numbers to the printer The first num ber that you specify n indicates a number of columns 0 255 as you d expect A 255 in that position says reserve 255 columns for graphics which means that any Single Density figure less than half a page wide can be handled easily by the first number alone Although you may sometimes need only this first slot for specifying width you must not stop with that specification You must still satisfy the printer which always expects a value for the sec
229. way which allows you to print true cirdes You can print a sample of all the modes with the following program 10 FOR M 0 TO 6 20 AS CHRS 27 CHRS M CHR 120 0 30 BS CHRS 85 CHRS 42 50 LPRINT MODE g M yg 60 LPRINT A FOR 1 TO 60 LPRINT B NEXT X 70 LPRINT NEXT M 80 LPRINT 27 149 Figure 11 4 Seven density modes Figure 11 4 displays all seven of the FX modes that affect graphics density Table 11 1 describes them More Graphics Programming Tips The next two sections discuss two modes that the FX offers to help you solve potential graphics problems A reassigning code allows you to change the density for graphics programs that use one of the four alternate codes The 9 pin Graphics Mode allows you to use all nine pins on each line and thus speed up screen dumps Reassigning alternate graphics codes The FX provides a command to reassign one of the alternate graphics codes K L Y or Z so that it reoresents any other of the seven Graphics Modes The command and its format are LPRINT CHR 27 s CHR n where s is one of the four symbols K L Y or Z and n is one of the numbers used with the ESCape command 0 to 6 There are sev eral instances in which you may use this sequence The first occurs if you have written a program to be printed in one Graphics Mode and now want to print it in another If you have used concatenation to store
230. while others cannot be mixed at all Most important you ll gain an insight into the way the print modes work and you ll attain a higher level of control over your printer With the many modes available on the FX there are enough mode combinations to suit just about any palate It s impossible however for each print mode to get along with all others as well as Emphasized does with Double Strike For example you cannot mix either Empha sized or its variation Proportional with Elite or Compressed pitches for a very good reason Emphasized characters already violate the rule that two overlap ping dots cannot be printed in the same row Sincethe FX prints Emphasized in Pica Mode at half normal speed it can make an excep tion But the dots in Elite and Compressed characters are already so dosely packed that printing them in Emphasized print as well is not possible even at the slower speed The print head simply cannot fire and retract the pins fast enough So what does the printer do when it receives a request for two con flicting modes Ignore one of them take a vacation or beep loudly The answer is none of the above It turns both modes on internally but based on a factory set priority list sdects only one of them for printing text As you found out in Chapter 3 when you cancelled Eliteto see Compressed print the FX remembers that a mode is on even though that doesn t affect the current print line Just to produce a little more
231. ws that the loop in line 20 and the ESCape A com mand in line 30 gradually increase the line spacing Because many computer systems have difficulty with one or more numbers below 13 in character string commands we have used X 128 in the line spacing command to avoid those problens 96 The ESCape A CHR n command sets the line spacing to n 72 inch if the n is any number from 0 through 85 If n is between 85 and 128 the line spacing is 85 72 inch At 128 the sequence starts again with 128 giving the same result as 0 129 the same as 1 and so on Therefore the X428 in line 30 produces a change in line spacing from 0 to 24 72 inch In summary ESCape A CH R n selects line spacing in 72nds of inch where n 0 85 linespadng 0 85 72 inch 85 127 85 72 inch 128 213 0 85 72 inch 214 255 85 72 inch Since the ESCape A sequence lets you specify any 72nd of an inch from 0 85 and since each dot of a dot matrix fills 1 72 inch you can use this command instead of the preset commands that we covered above You can set 12 dot line spacing either by specifying 12 to the A sequence or by using the preset command CHR 27 A CHR 12 CHR 27 2 Notice the position of the ESCape A sequence in line 30 right between the strings STAIR and STEPS We placed it there to demon strate that the FX doesn t execute the line feed command until the end of the print line Otherwise it would print th
232. y deleting lines 20 40 50 and 100 to540 Now change 60 LPRINT CHRS 27 S CHRS 0 16 70 FOR 1 TO 6 LPRINT CHRS 139 90 NEXT Y 223 Deleting line 20 ensures that the printer does not download the ROM characters That makes your defined characters the only ones around no funny stuff on the printer Here is the data 100 SIX 110 DATA 7 8 16 0 32 3 68 0 72 0 73 120 DATA 73 0 72 0 68 3 32 0 16 8 7 130 DATA 73 0 9 0 17 96 2 0 4 8 112 140 DATA 112 8 4 0 2 96 17 0 9 0 73 150 DATA 127 0 0 0 0 127 0 0 0 0 127 160 DATA 73 73 73 73 73 73 73 13 13 13 13 That s right there are only six characters but it is a very powerful set of characters With them you can print an entire alphabet and more To see the magnificent SIX type 180 LPRINT 1 2 3 4 5 6 200 LPRINT CHR 27 Q END om MOVE OM m Now try printing them in a different order Type 170 FOR Y 1 TO 5 180 READ P LPRINT P 190 NEXT Y 210 Tracks 220 DATA 62662620162016262050166 230 DATA 05005050505050505050500 240 DATA 05005630565050005630462 250 DATA 05005050505050505050005 260 DATA 05005046304636305046663 Give it a RUN to get the pattern shown in Figure 16 5 Fi gure 16 8 Tracks Those little characters can do some amazing tricks Try another begin by deleting lines 210 170 FOR Y 1 TO 8 210 Pattern 224 to 260 then change 210 Pattern 220 DATA 00012000 01665620 230 pata 05
233. ymbols NEW 10 LPRINT CHRS 8 Not equal For the not equal symbol the backspace moves the print head back over the equal sign so that the slash can be printed on top of it You can 81 use the same technique to produce the plus or minus symbol 10 LPRINT 27 0 8 Plus minus 20 LPRINT 27 5 1 30 LPRINT 27 I How about that and it only took three lines Next try this approxi mately equally short program 10 LPRINT 126 8 Approximately equal 20 LPRINT 27 J CHRS 11 CHR 126 30 27 Q This program prints CHR 126 a diacritical mark used in Spanish that is called a tilde You backspace the print head by using CHR 8 then force a partial line feed by using Escape J CHR 11 The FX prints the second tilde just below the first one to form the desired figure Offsets The backspace function works in all pitches which opens up some interesting possibilities To see what happens when you mix backspac ing with different pitch modes we ve prepared a special program that shows off the backspace function in two passes first in Pica and then in Expanded Pica We cause all backspacing to be done in Compressed Mode to create a slight offset Enter NEW 10 FOR J 0 TO 1 20 LPRINT 27 7 Expanded when 2 1 30 LPRINT BACKSPACES CHRS 15 Compressed 40FOR X 1 TO 17 LPRINT CHRS
234. you to add a particular finishing touch to your printouts After we show how you can quickly select 16 combinations of pitch and weight by using the Master Select feature we demonstrate combining the combinations Four M odes These four modes give you capabilities that are unusual for dot matrix printing an underline of any character or blank space true Super and Subscript characters and an Italic Mode that any com puter system can select without software adjustments Underline Mode In the old days dot matrix printers could not underline words Even in the not so old days printer users like you had to use all kinds of tricks to underline words The technique usually involved using either the hyphen or underscore along with either a change of line spacing or the use of backspace When it worked the right words did get underlined but those methods were tedious and time consum ing Those days are now gone thanks to the FX It has a built in Under line Mode that makes underlining very easy You can toggle the con trol code for Underline ESCape on and off just as you toggle the code for Expanded Mode To turn Underline on you use 27 CHRS 1 or CHR 27 1 69 You can turn Underline Mode off with CHR 27 CHR 0 CHR 27 0 Enter and RUN this program to see what FX underlining looks like NEW 20 LPRINT CHR 27 1UNDERLINING IS SIMPLE 40LPRINT CHR 27 0 TO TURN ON OFF

Epson FX-100 User's Manual

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