DESIGNING YOUR OWN NLQ CHARACTERS
As you have probably noticed, NLQ characters are printed by
two passes of the print head. Half of the character is printed on
the first pass, and the remainder on the second pass. The paper
is rolled up half a dot height in between passes to let the print
head print dots on the second pass that overlap the previous
dots, in order to fill in the spaces and produce denser characters.
Fundamentally, the process to define and print downloaded
NLQ characters is the same as for draft characters, except that
you must design the character with the two passes of the print
head in mind.
Use the grid in Figure 6-6 to help plot the data. Due to the
two-pass process, NLQ characters can contain up to 16 dots ver-
tically. ml to ml1 are the data for the first pass, and ml2 to
m22 are the data for the second pass.
128
128
84
64
32
32
18
1s
s
8
4
4
2
2
1
1
ASCII Code:
Descender:
Start column:
End column:
MO = Descender * 128 + (Start * 16) + End
TOlJ
1st
2nd
I 1
Figure 6-6. Use this grid (or one similar to it) to define your own
NLQ characters.
To make the character data easier to calculate, put the first
pass dots inside the boxes on the grid when you are designing