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Star Micronics NB24-10/15 user manual n The seven bit dilemma

Models: NB24-10/15

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nThe seven bit dilemma

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Let’s analyze the program. Line 20 defines the line spacing to 6/60 of an inch so that the characters that we print will touch top to bottom. Lines 30 - 50 print 10 vertical line characters. Then line 70 sets uni-directional printing and the vertical lines are printed again. Finally line 110 sends a form feed to advance the paper to the top of a new page, and then uses the master reset to restore the printer to the power on condition.

You can also set the printer to print in one direction for one line only by using the (ESC) “(” command. This command im- mediately moves the print head to the left margin and then prints the remainder of the line from left to right.

nThe seven bit dilemma

Some computers (not the IBM-PC fortunately!) don’t have the capability to send eight bits on their parallel interface, but can only send seven bits. This would make it impossible for these computers to use this printer’s block graphics characters and special symbols if our engineers hadn’t thought of a solution.

(All of these characters have ASCII codes greater than 127 which means that the eighth bit must be on to use them.) The solution lies in the three control codes given in the following table:

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Star Micronics NB24-10/15 user manual n The seven bit dilemma

Contents

NOT INTENDED FOR SALE 1PN 80821223 USER’S MANUALOReorient the receiving antenna A Special Message to the New Owner Getting to Know Table of ContentsSetting Up Your Printer Chapter ChapterChapter 3 Using the Printer with Commercial 25 Software Some basics of BASIC First steps Immediate-print Adjusting the width of space between characters mode StandardIndex239 Appendix H Serial Interfack SpecificationsConfiguring the serial interface The serial protocols Serial busy protocols XON/XOFF protocol ACK protocolSubjects covered in Chapter 1 include SETTING UP YOUR PRINTERChoosing a suitable place for your printer Unpacking Setting up CHAPTERW Removing the printer cover Figure 1-2. Remove the printer cover by lifting carefully n Removing shipping screws 15-inch type only Page i ‘igure 1-6. To thread the ribbon, slide the print head carriage E I L n Installing the font cartridge Subjects covered in Chapter 2 include Parts of the printer - what they’re for and how to use themPaper selection and loading Adjustment Testing printer operation GETTING TO KNOW YOUR PRINTERpanelh Figure2- 1. Front and rear views.of the printer printerMute cover Printer coverI15 inch type1 lo inch type1 current TOP OF FORM KEYw Extra functions n Other controls n Loading single sheets 2-6. Raise the paper guide for loading single sheets To align paper that is not in straight n Loading sprocket-feed paper ~-- ~-~ Figure 2-10. Close the sprocket covGGw?pGa tioned correctly ITry different positions until you get the best printing results 1. Plug in the printer don’t turn it on yet Figure 2-14. Connect the cable like this Self-test Standard mode IBM mode2-13 The self-tests show you what the printer can printfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz~- !~$g&*+,-./0123456789=?@~CDEFGH MEMO CHAPTER USING THE PRINTER WITH COMMERCIAL SOFTWARESubjects covered in Chapter 3 include- * Using commercial software Controlling the printer with the Panel modeWORD PROCESSING WITH THE PRINTER W The escape code The escape code sequence to turn the LQ set on is ESC “x” values defined by their respective DIP switch settingsn Using Letter Quality LQ Technically speaking, initializing the printer clears the print1. Printing from the Print List Form screen use italic, expanded, emphasized and italic-underline print El201 42. Single Underline Support Zj Using Character n A sample printout with EasyWriter Print the document. Your printout should look like this 1 PX USING THE PRINTER WITH WORDSTARSubscript User’s Manual for instructions or contact your dealer for assistance Page And, on August 12, 1986, the results might look like this Quality PrintADVANCED PANEL FUNCTIONS Clear the print 2. While holding the On Line key, press the Type Style key 1. Set the Off Line mode by pressing the On Line keyPaper Feed key - Right margin set H Clearing the print bufferCHAPTER PRINTING WITH BASIC4 First steps n Control codes w ASCII codes and the CHR$ function10 Demo of ASCII code 20 LPRINT CHR$7 30 END RUN B The escape codes n A note on command syntaxESC “W” n Selecting the right software mode n Draft and Letter Quality characters This line is in ITALIC characters commandsn Characters in the Font Cartridge Selects internal characters In this program underline is turned on in line 30 with ESC 50 LPRINT This line is ELITE pitch 60 LPRINT CHRS27P CHANGING THE PRINT PITCH10 Demo of print pitches 20 LPRINT CHR$27g 30 LPRINT This line is SEMI-CONDENSED pitch 40 LPRINT CHR$27MWhen you run this program you should get this return with CHR$20, as done in line Demonstrationof CONDENSEDprinting Page MAKING WORDS STAND OUT This line is BOLDFACE printing your printer is set for normal printing Summary notes FORMATTING TEXT CHAPTERreturn. Each time the printer receives a CHR$13 it returns the DIP switch 2-6 is on see belowDIP switch 1 command to the printer90 END 20 FOR I=1 TO 30 IF I=13 THEN 40 LPRINT CH.R$27ACHR$I50 LPRINT THIS LINE SPACING IS SET TO1 60 NEXT 70 LPRINT LINE SPACING IS SET TO l/6 INCH NORMAL. 80 LPRINT CHR$272This is what you will get with the Standard mode and run the program again. Now the results will look like this By comparing with the results between the Standard mode and the IBM modes, you’ll notice that the ESC “A” CHR$n command with the IBM modes defined the line spacing as n/72 of an inch, instead of n/60 of an inch I’ESC “J” C”‘n One-timelinefeedof .-,Ion I--LHere is what your printer will produce with Standard mode a- 1-w-----m n Reverse form feed TOP AND BOTTOM MARGINS NEW 10 Demo of variable form lengths 20 LPRINT CHR$27CCHR$OCHR$730 LPRINT PAY TO THE ORDER OF 40 LPRINT CHR$lZ 50 LPRINT PAY TO THE ORDER OF 60 ENDWhen you run this program it will print 150 lines right down Now when you run the program, your printer skip the first six lines and the last six lines on each page. Always send a form feed after setting the top margin, or it will not work on the first page printed. That’s because the top margin only takes effect after a form feed Try setting the margins with this program Run the program. The results will look like this ESC “D” is the command to begin setting horizontal tabs. It n One-time horizontal tabs Draft characters Units of motion for the relative horizontal tab commandsUnit of motion Print pitchto the program Now, let’s set some vertical tabs of our own. Add these linesThere’s a one-time vertical tab command that works just like 10 ’ Demo of print positions 20 LPRINT ‘I* 1st Line, 1st Column” H Vertical tab channels In this program we set tabs at 10 and 20 in channel 1 in line Function commands5-12 AlignmentUni-directional printing International character sets SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE PRINTERSubjects covered in Chapter 6 include Printer’s bell Master reset CHAPTERThe code to sound the “bell” is CHR$7, which is ASCII code Some miscellaneous commands The following program shows how these codes works 20 A$= INPUT TYPE A CHARACTERS,A$ 30 IF A$= THEN 40 LPRINT A$ GOT0 Unit of motion Print pitch Draft characters Letter Quality characters Units of motion for the adjustment of the character width60 LPRINT LPRINT 70 LPRINT CHR$27Ul 80 FOR I=1 TO 90 LPRINT 100 NEXT 20 LPRINT CHR$27ACHR$6 30 FOR I=1 TO 40 LPRINT 50 NEXT110 LPRINT CHR$l2CHR$27g n The seven bit dilemma 110 LPRINT ICHR$ICHR$9 120 NEXT 130 LPRINT LPRINT 140 NEXT J 10 LPRINT CHRS27O 20 LPRINT CHR$276 30 FOR J=3 TO40 LPRINT JCHR$JCHR$9 50 NEXT J 60 LPRINT 21 CHR$21 70 LPRINT 80 FOR J=128 TO 254 STEP 90 FOR I=J TO Jt4 100 IF I254 THENFigure 6-1. Character set #2 110 LPRINT ICHR$27CHR$ICHR$27= CHRS9 Here is what this program prints n International character sets The characters that change are shown beneath their ASCII code in Table A note for IBM-PC users 101 110 OUT &H378,1 OUT &H37A,5 OUT &H37A,4 SIZED PRINTING When you run this program, you will get this102 THIS IS DOUBLE SIZED PRINTING THIS IS QUADAutomatic sheet feeder commands1Control ctide BABCDEFG 104 10 FOR I=0 TO 20 LPRINT U-IRSI 30 NEXT 40 LPRINT 50 END“PS%b’ FABCDEFG HIJKLH#O PORSTUYW XYZ\l ‘abcdefg hlJkimn0 pqrstuvv xyz,lNotice that your printer receives decimal code 13 hex OD together with hex OA, which is really decimal 10. In addition, your printer does not receive decimal code 26 hex 1A MEMO CHAPTER DOWNLOAD CHARACTERS AND DOT GRAPHICSSubjects covered in Chapter 7 include Designing and printing your own characters User-designed graphicsDESIGNING YOUR OWN CHARACTERS downloadedand stored in RAM Random Access Memory for use draftcharacters Figure 7-3. Use thisgridoronesimilartoittodefineyourownASCII code 2nd byte Data 1% 2nd 3rd 4th 3rd 5th byte6th 7th 8th 9th Page n Assigning a value to your character ESC “&,, CHR$O nl n2 m0 ml m2 dl d2 d3 ... dx Now let’s send the information to the printer. The following ESC “%” n FS “” CHR$O CHR$O CHR$O only for the IBM-P mode 420 LPRINT 430 LPRINT JAPANCHR$g 440 FOR I=0 TO 347 STEP 117 310 NEXT 320 LPRINT 330 LPRINT GERMANYCHR$g340 FOR I=0 TO 412 STEP 350 LPRINT CHR$60 360 NEXT 370 LPRINT 380 LPRINT CHR$9 390 FOR I=0 TO 488 STEP 400 LPRINT CHR$61 410 NEXTLQ characterswithelitepitch Maximum MaximumDraftcharacters LQ characterswithpicapitchUSER-DESIGNED DOT GRAPHICS STORlNG THE DOWNLOAD CHARACTERSESC “*” n0 nl n2 ml m2 Page COMPATIBILITY WITH EXISTING SOFTWARE nl n2 ml nl n2 ml721n2 ml n2 mlMEMO