Send it a Message

Line 50 actually sends the messages down the line to the printer. The expression inside the CHR$ function looks complicated, but that’s just to keep your atention. Observe its form, but ignore its contents. We’ll have to study the whole manual to find out how to generate such a pretty line of graphics.

Add line 50:

5 0 P R I N T C H R $ ( 2 ^ I N T ( 3 . 4 * S I N ( I ) + l ) ) ) ;

and RUN.

Isn’t that slick? It gets even better when we understand how to design our own.

The Finale

Only 1 more easy line. It’s downhill now.

Line 70 starts out with a TAB and two character codes. It’s back to the ASCII chart, Appendix A to see that 98 and 121 are the codes for lower case b and y. We’ve already used CHR$ (14) and seen that it puts the printer in double width mode.

Add line 70:

70 PRINTTAB (20) CHR$ (98) CHR$ (l2l) CHR$ (l4)" EPSON"

and RUN. Very nice.

This has been a feature-packed chapter, but it gave us a good introduction to some varied and powerful capabilities we can put to work. Better take a break before tackling Chapter 3. It wouldn’t hurt to go through this chapter once more before moving on, now that we know the plot.

Print Command Codes Learned so Far

CHR$ (14) - Turns ON double-width characters. (Goes OFF by self after end of line)

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