Star Micronics manual 3How your laser printer communicates, Star LaserPrinter 4111is a computer

Ask your Star LaserPrinter 4111dealer about resources like these. Desktop publishing with laser printers is fast-changing territory, and some Star Micronics staff people have found electronic bulletin boards and computer user groups quite helpful in keeping up with the changing pace. If you invest a little time this way it may repay you well.

.1.1.3How your laser printer communicates

Your computer communicates with the Star LaserPrinter 4111through either a parallel cable or one of two kinds of serial cable. The printer’s inter-ace,the link or boundary it shares with your computer, defines whether the printer will accept characters and commands from your computer one byte or one bit at a time.

A bit is the smallest unit of computer or printer memory. It has either a low or high electric charge, which we represent with the digits Oand 1. Usually eight adjacent bits are grouped to form a byte. Since a byte normally represents one character, this string of bits — 01000001 — might represent the letter A.

The serial interface accepts just one bit at a time from your computer. A parallel interface can handle a whole byte at once, by moving data bits side- by-side along separate wires. You choose which interface method you want to use by selecting it on the operator panel, as explained in your Sfar LaserPrinter 4111Operations Manual.

1.1.4The Star LaserPrinter 4111is a computer

The Star LaserPrinter 4111first maps the characters to be printed into its own random access memory (RAM). That is, the printer builds.a “picture” in its memory corresponding to the page you want to print. When that’s done the printer can reproduce the page onto paper on its own, letting your computer get on with other work.

Your Star LaserPrinter 4111comes with one megabyte of RAM — the equivalent of about one million characters. A Star LaserPrinter 4111option lets you add a second 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 a library of internal fonts and the programs that let the Star LaserPrinter 4111emulate other printers.

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