Ask your Star LaserPrinter 4111dealerabout resources like these. Desktop
publishing with laser printers is fast-changing territory, and some Star
Micronics staffpeople have found electronic bulletin boards and computer
usergroups quitehelpful in keepingup with the changing pace. If you invest
alittletime this way it may repay you well.
.1.1.3How your laser printer communicates
Yourcomputer communicates with the Star LaserPrinter 4111througheither
aparallel cable or oneof two kinds of serial cable. The printer’s inter-ace,
thelink orboundary itshareswith yourcomputer, defineswhether theprinter
willaccept charactersand commands fromyour computerone byteorone bit
at atime.
Abitis the smallest unit of computer or printer memory. It has either alow
orhigh electric charge, which we represent with the digits Oand 1. Usually
eight adjacent bits are grouped to form abyte. Since abyte normally
representsone character, this string of bits 01000001might represent
the letter A.
The serial interface accepts just one bit at atime from your computer. A
parallelinterface can handle awhole byte at once, by moving data bits side-
by-sidealong separate wires. You choose which interface method you want
to use by selecting it on the operator panel, as explained in your Sfar
LaserPrinter4111OperationsManual.
1.1.4 The Star LaserPrinter 4111is acomputer
The StarLaserPrinter 4111firstmapsthe characters to be printed into itsown
randomaccess memory (RAM). That is, the printer builds.a “picture” in its
memory correspondingto the page you want to print. When that’s done the
printercan reproduce the page onto paper on its own, letting yourcomputer
get on with other work.
Your Star LaserPrinter 4111comes with one megabyte of RAM the
equivalentof about one million characters. AStar LaserPrinter 4111option
letsyou add asecond megabyte of RAM if, say, you need to map full-page
graphics or store more fonts. Accompanying all that RAM is another 2
megabytes of read only memory (ROM), containing alibrary of internal
fonts and the programs that let the Star LaserPrinter 4111emulate other
printers.
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