International characters

As you know, languages other than English require a few extra characters. In the Epson mode, the FX-286 has provided for printing in many languages by having nearly 100 international characters in its ROM (Read Only Memory). This total includes characters in three sets: draft, draft italic, and NLQ (Near Letter Quality).

In order to print any of these characters, you first select one of the following character sets and then use the individual characters within that set.

0

U S A

6

Italy

1 France

7

Spain

2 Germany

8

Japan

3

United Kingdom

9 Norway

4

Denmark I

10 Denmark II

5Sweden

You select the character set in one of two ways: with an ESCape code or with a DIP switch (see Appendix A). The ESCape code in BASIC has the following format:

LPRINT CHR$(27)"R"CHR$(n)

in which n is the appropriate number from the list above. In other words, the BASIC command to select the French character set is

LPRINT CHR$(27)"R"CHR$(l)

The other method of selecting an international character set is to reset a DIP switch. If you plan to use one of the international sets quite a bit, see Appendix A for instructions for using the DIP switches.

Once you have selected a character set, whether you do it with the ESCape code or the DIP switches, you will be able to print several new characters. The character sets are shown in Tables 5-2, 5-3, and 5-4.

5-14