If your Printer is controlled by a third-party software package, please refer to the operator’s manual supplied with the software package for operating instructions. For detailed explanations of the Printer’s commands and label format structure, refer to the Programmer's Manual.
A typical application for a PC-based system is printing labels for manufacturing production in a Batch Mode. In these applications, a data-base of part numbers, descriptions, warehouse locations, and shipping weight information may be obtained through the PC. Through an entry screen, the operator selects the type and quantity of labels to be printed. The PC sends the data serially to the Printer and the operator receives the labels requested.
Connecting to Your Minicomputer
Connecting the Printer to most minicomputers is similar to connecting to a PC. Most minicomputers made by Digital Equipment, Hewlett Packard, Unisys, etc., have ASCII RS-232C serial ports similar to PCs. Interfacing to IBM systems sometimes requires a protocol converter. The cable you select for connecting the Printer to a minicomputer will vary depending on the type of computer system you have. Diagrams in Appendix D describe a straight serial cable and a null modem cable, one of these two cables should work on your system.
Connecting to Your Non-ASCII Device
The Printer uses the standard ASCII for conversion of byte patterns to characters. The standard port for receiving data expects asynchronous ASCII serial data. If your host system uses an interface other than ASCII character-based RS-232C, you will need an interface converter.
Some hosts, such as IBM mainframe equipment, do not use the ASCII standard for data encoding, rather many IBM machines use
EBCDIC.