Star Micronics NR-10, NR-15 user manual Eighth bit controls Function Control code

command immediately moves the printhead to the left margin and then prints the remainder of the line from left to right.

W The 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 so- lution. (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 fol- lowing table:

Table 6-3

Eighth bit controls

Function Control code

Turn the eighth bit ON

Turn the eighth bit OFF

Accept the eighth bit “as is” from the computer

<ESC> “>”

<ESC> “=”

(Except IBM-P mode)

<FS> “z” (IBM-P mode)

< ESC, ,,#,,

nBlock graphics characters and special symbols

Besides the upper and lower case letters and symbols that we are by now familiar with, your printer has a whole different set of characters that are for special uses. These characters include block graphics for drawing forms and graphs, and special symbols for mathematical, engineering and professional uses. The special characters are included in two character sets. The character set you normally use with the IBM mode is called character set #l. The special characters are printed out when you send ASCII codes 160-255 to the printer.

Your printer also offers character set #2 which is almost the same as character set #l except for the addition of ASCII codes 3 N 6, 21, and 128 N 159. Character set #2 is selected with

<ESC> “6”; to go back to character set #l, use < ESC > “7.”