Star Micronics NB-15 user manual Creating Your OWN Characters

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CHAPTER 8

CREATING YOUR

OWN CHARACTERS

Subjects we’ll cover in Chapter 8 include-

*Designing your own characters; • Printing your own characters;

• Print mode and the download characters.

In the previous chapters of this manual you’ve learned how to control the printer to give dozens of different typefaces. By us- ing various combinations of pitches, character weights, and font selections, you can create nearly any effect you want to in text. And with international character sets and the special text and big characters described in Chapter 7, you can print almost any character you think of.

But if “almost any character” isn’t good enough for you, then it’s a good idea you have this printer! With it you can actually create your own characters. As you’ll see in this chapter, download characters can be used to print a logo, special characters for foreign languages, scientific and professional ap- plications, or any other specific printing task.

DOT MATRIX PRINTING

In order to create download characters, you’ll need some understanding of how dot matrix printers work. The process is called dot-matrix printing because each character is composed of small dots arranged on a matrix, or grid. To see how that character grid gets printed, you need to take a look at the print head itself.

The printhead in this printer contains 24 wires apparently ar- ranged in a vertical column. If you were to remove the print head and look at the wires, you would see two staggered col- umns of twelve wires. However, the timing is such that they print as one continuous column of 24 wires.

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Contents USER’S MANUAli Tatement Special Message to the New Owner Table of Contents CHR$ Chapter Controlling with BasicChapter Special Features of the Printer Functions of the Connector Signals TRS-80 Basic Appendix G Serial Interface SpecificationsSetting UP Your Printer Page Tion and movement for both removing and replacing the cover Page Print head Printer Slide the I/F board into the slot Page Getting to Know Your Printer Page Page Page Selecting and Loading Paper ‘igure 2-4. Raise the paper guide for loading single sheets You can insert a sheet of paper by using the release lever To align paper that is not in straight Sprocket cover You can raise While trrnirrgon the power Self-test DIP switch 2-2 on Efgh!jklmnopqr¶tuvwxyz~ ?lSS&‘ TOF During normal operation Connecting the Printer Page Memo Using Commercial Software Page Ascii Using Your Printer with Word Processors Page Memo Controlling With Basic List PR#ONEW Lprint Testing RUN ESC W Lprint CHR$27WCHR$l Lprint CHR$27WCHR$49 Lprint CHRS27Wl Memo Printing Text Lprint CHR$27 xl ESC Lprint Undelined OFF ESCLprint Overlined Boldface on Escso When you run this program you should get this Demonstration Condensed Here’s what you should get from this program OFF Elite mint Summary notes Memo Formatting Text This is what you will get This Line Spacing is SET to Run the program again. Now the results will look like this Here is what your printer will produce Lprint CHRS12 Line NumberIOI ESCNCHR$n Lprint this is LINE1 Next This is Line Return TWO Three Four ONE This command sets the horizontal tab to every eight columns Next Try thisprogram tosee how this works Lprint CHR$11 First TAB Lprint CHR$llFIFTH TAB CHR$O Lprint 2ND TAB of CHANNEL’ Memo Special Features Printer Lprint CHR$7 ESCVCHR$O Here is what this program will print Lprint CHR$27il Printing direction commands Function Control code Next Lprint Lprint Eighth bit controls Next J 129 LPRINTCHR$27 LPRINTCHR$27= Lprintlprint Double This is Double Sized Printing Lprint CHR$I Next LprintPage Creating Your OWN Characters Print Matrix Defining Your OWN Characters Usethisgridoronesimilartoittodefineyourown draftcharacters Wrong 128 Assigningavalueofcharacterspace Characterdesignsforthetwographsymbols Page Read MM LPRINTCHR$MM Next M Next N Lprint LPRINTCHR$I Next Lprint CHR$I Next LprintLprint LPRINTGERMANYCHR$9 Lprintscales Read MM Lprint CHR$MM Next M Data 1, 9, 2, 31,253,64, 32, 1,128,80MO+ml +m2 105 106