The Command parameter
The Star LaserPrinter 8’s Emulation setting defines which printer it is
imitating: Hewlett-Packard LaserJet series II, Xerox Diablo 630, Epson
EX-800 or IBM Proprinter.
Most of the other COMMAND values below can be changed with Escape
codes as well as from the panel.
As the Number of Copies setting suggests, the Star LaserPrinter 8 can print
either just one copy of each page sent to it, or multiple copies up to 99. Most
word processing and other packages, however, let you look after multiple
copies of a document without using this command. You may consequently
prefer to leave this at the default (one copy), changing it only as necessary
through software commands.
Two settings are only meaningful when you are using HP LaserJet series II
commands. First, if you enable Macro Overlay, from zero to 99 macros can
be active.
Second, most of the time you’ll want to print across the width of the page,
but occasionally you may want to print up the length of the page. Unlike most
other laser printers, your Star LaserPrinter 8 lets you rotate fonts to print
either way- you don’t have to buy separate fonts to print sideways on the
page.
Your printer normally feeds a new form when you rotate a font, to avoid
accidentally printing both orientations on the same page. But if you want to
intermix orientations, just change the value of FF on Rotate to NO. (Font
orientation is explained in more detail below with the LAYOUT parameter.)
A few computers change certaincontrol or Escape codes when sending them
to the printer, which naturally causes confusion. Moreover, many program-
mers prefer to see hexadecimal printout when they are debugging programs.
To help with these situations, you can make your Star LaserPrinter 8 print
in hexadecimal rather than the usual ASCII mode by switching ON the HEX
DUMP parameter setting (see the sidebar below).
The last three COMMAND values concern the physical machine. You can
set the intensity of the printer’s LCD display from 1 (faint) to 7 (bright); its
default setting is 4. You can enable or disable both the beeper and the
Warning Alarm (which sounds continuously).
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