Star Micronics NP-IO User Manual

NP-IO

USER’S MANUAL

NOT INTENDED FOR SALE

[ PN 80820191]

Federal Communications Commission

Radio Fre

This equipment generates and uses radio frequency energy and if not installed and used
properly, that is, in strict accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions, may cause in­terference to radio and television reception. It has been type tested and found to comply
with the limits for a Class B computing device in accordance with the specifications in
Subpart J of Part 15 of FCC Rules, which are designed to provide reasonable protection
against such interference in a residential installation. However, there is no guarantee

uency Interference

s

tatement

that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment does cause
interference to radio or television reception, which can be determined by turning the
equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or
more of the following measures:

*Reorient the receiving antenna
*Relocate the cornouter with resoect to the receiver
*Move the computkr away from ‘the receiver
*Plug the computer into a different outlet so that computer and receiver are on dif-

ferent branch circuits.

If necessary! the user should consult the dealer or an experienced radio/television techni­cian for additional suggestions. The user may find the following booklet, prepared by
the Federal Communications Commission helpful: “How to Identify and Resolve Radio­TV Interference Problems.” This booklet is available from the U.S. Government Prin­ting Office, Washington, D.C., 20402, Stock No. 004-000-00345-4.

For compliance with Federal Noise Interference Standard, this equipment requires a
shielded cable.

This statement will be applied only for the printers marketed in U.S.A.

Self Declaration

Radio interferences regarding this equipment has been eliminated according to Vfg
1046/1984 announced by the DBP.
DBP has been informed about the introduction of this special equipment and has been
conceded the right to examine the whole series.
It is upon the responsibility of the user to assume that his own assembled system is in ac­cordance with the technical regulations under Vfg 1046/1984.
To observe FTZ-regulations it is necessary, to establish all connections to the printer
with shielded cable.
The equipment may only be opened by qualified service representatives.

This statement will be applied only for the printers marketed in West Germany.

Trademark Acknowledgement

NP-10: Star Micronics Co., Ltd.
Apple II : Apple computer Inc.
IBM Personal Computer, IBM PC: International Business Machines Corp.
Microsoft BASIC: Microsoft Corporation

NOTICE

*All rights reserved. Reproduction of any part of this manual in any form what-

soever, without STAR’s express permission is forbidden.
*The contents of this manual are subject to change without notice.
*All efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the contents of this manual at

the time of going to press. However, should any errors be detected, STAR would be

eatly appreciate being informed of them.

F

l he above notwithstanding, STAR can assume no responsibility for any errors in

this manual.

@Kopyright 1986 Star Micronics Co., Ltd.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Setting Up Your Printer

Locating the printer
Check the carton contents

Removing the printer cover
Removing the packing tube
Installing the ribbon cartridge

Getting to Know Your Printer

Controls and parts of the printer

Parts of the printer
Controls and indicators
Extra functions
Other controls

Selecting and loading paper

Loading single sheets
Loading sprocket-feed paper

Adjusting the print head
Testing the printer
Connecting the printer

Printing with BASIC

Some basics of BASIC

First steps

ASCII codes and the CHR$ function

Control codes

The escape codes

A note on command syntax

Some special kinds of text

Near Letter Quality characters
Italic printing
Underlining
Superscripts and subscripts

Changing the print pitch

Expanded print
Condensed print

Proportional printing
Making words stand out
Mixing print modes

1

7

19

Chapter 4

Formatting Text

Lines and line spacing

Starting a new line
Reverse line feeds
Changing the line spacing

Moving down the page without a carriage re-

turn

Page control

Form feed
Reverse form feed
Changing the page length

Top and bottom margins
Setting left and right margins
Horizontal and vertical tabs

Horizontal tabs
One-time horizontal tabs
Vertical tabs
Vertical tab channels

Centering and aligning text

37

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Chapter 5

Special Features of the Printer

59

Now hear this

Resetting the printer
Taking the printer off line
Printing the bottom of the sheet
Backspace, delete, and cancel text
Printing zeroes

Immediate-print
Adjusting the width of space between ­characters

Uni-directional printing

The seven bit dilemma

Block graphics characters and special symbols

International character sets
Printing characters in the control code area
Printing BIG characters
The macro control code
Reading a hex dump

Chapter 6

Download Characters and Dot
Graphics

Dot matrix printing

Designing your own characters

Defining proportional characters
Designing your own NLQ characters
User-designed dot graphics
Higher resolution graphics
More graphics programming tips

Redefining alternate graphics codes
g-pin graphics mode

79

Chapter 7

Appendix A DIP Switch Settings

Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D Function Codes

Caring for Your Printer

Cleaning the printer
Replacing the ribbon

Replacing the print head

Switch functions

ASCII Code Conversion Chart
Character Code Table

Commands to control print style

Font style controls
Font pitch controls
Special print modes

Controlling the vertical print position

Line feed and reverse line feed controls
Form feed and related commands
Top/bottom margins and vertical tabs

Controlling the horizontal print position

Download character commands
Dot graphics commands
Macro instruction commands

Other commands

95

101

105
107
115

Appendix E

Command Summary in Numeric
Order

161

---

Appendix F Technical Specifications
Appendix G The Parallel Interface

Functions of the Connector Signals

Index

165
169

173

CHAPTER I

SETTING UP YOUR

PRINTER

Subjects covered in Chapter 1 include-

. Choosing a suitable place for your printer

l Unpacking
l Setting up

LOCATING THE PRINTER

Give some thought to the best place to put the printer. Both
the printer and computer should be used in normal home sur­roundings. For best performance, we recommend:

l Use the printer on a flat surface.
l Keep it out of direct sunlight and away from heat-

producing appliances.

l Use it only in temperatures where you are comfortable.
l Avoid locations with dust, grease, or high humidity.
l Supply it “clean”

same circuit used by large, noise-producing appliances
(such as refrigerators).

l Make sure the line voltage is within 10% of the voltage

specified on the identification plate.

electricity. Don’t connect it to the

CHECK THE CARTON CONTENTS

Open the carton and check each item in the box against
Figure l-l to make sure that you have everything (there should
be four items).

igure l- 1.

Check to make sure you have all tour items: 1) Printer,

.._ . _. -

2) Paper separator, 3) Ribbon cartridge, and 4) User’s manual.

n Removing the printer cover

The printer’s cover is important for two reasons - it keeps
dust and dirt away from the printer’s delicate mechanism, and it
absorbs nearly all of the printer’s operating sounds. Don’t take
off the cover unless you have to change the ribbon or make an
adjustment.

To remove the cover, lift up the back of the cover to
disengage the two tabs at the front, then lift it off the rest of the
way. To replace the cover, slide the tabs in at the front and

lower it into place. Figure 1-2 shows the proper position and
movement for both removing and replacing the cover.

3

Figure 1-2.

Remove the printer cover by lifting carefully.

W Removing the packing tube

Figure 1-3.

Remove the protective tube from the carriage rail.

4

The printer is shipped with a protective spiral tube to keep
the print head from being damaged during shipping. This tube
must be removed before use. First, take off the printer cover.
The protective tube is split along its bottom side to allow easy
removal. Grasp one end of the spiral tube and firmly pull it up­ward and away from the carriage rail.

n Installing the ribbon cartridge

This printer uses a neat, easy-to-change ribbon cartridge with

automatic threading. To fit or change the ribbon cartridge:

Ggure 1-4. Press the cartridge into place until the holding springs

snap into place.

1. Turn off the power and remove the printer cover.

2. Slide the print head gently to the center of the printer.

Warning: The print head gets hot during operation, so

let it cool off before you touch it.

3. Set the release lever to either single sheet (a) or
sprocket-feed paper (P).

I

-

-

Print

T. _- - _ __ .__

‘.igure l-5.

.l’o thread the ribbon, slide the print head carriage

_._ _

manually to the right or left, and the ribbon will slip down by itself into
its proper position.

4.

With the ribbon facing away from you, use the guide
holders as a fulcrum, and lightly press the cartridge
down until the two holder springs snap shut to hold the
cartridge firmly in place. See Figure l-4.

5.

Check that the cartridge fits so that the drive pins
engage the cartridge teeth, by turning the ribbon ad­vance knob. Advance the ribbon to take up any slack.

6.

Gently slide the print head carriage manually all the way
to your right or left until the ribbon automatically slips
down into its proper place between the print head and
the silver ribbon guide.

7.

Replace the printer cover.

6

-

MEMO

-

CHAPTER 2

GETTING TO KNOW

YOUR PRINTER

Subjects covered in Chapter 2 include-

* Parts of the printer - what they’re for and how

to use them

l Paper selection and loading
l Adjustment
l Testing printer operation

CONTROLS AND PARTS OF THE PRINTER

n Parts of the printer

PRINTER COVER - This protects the ribbon and the print
head from dust and dirt, and cuts down the sound of the printer.

PAPER SEPARATOR - This metal guide is used with
sprocket-feed paper.
POWER CORD - This cord connects the printer to its power
source, usually a wall outlet. It’s located at the left rear of the
printer.
PRINT HEAD - This is the device that does the actual print­ing. Like the strike lever in a typewriter, tiny pins in the print
head hit the paper through a ribbon.

TRACTOR FEED UNIT - The drive gear and sprockets of
the tractor feed unit move sprocket-feed paper through the
printer.
PLATEN - This is the rubber cylinder that carries paper to
the print head.
INTERFACE CONNECTOR - On the back of the printer,
this connector is used to connect your computer to the printer.

8
I

Pow\er cord

. . .

Figure 2- 1.

Front and rear views of the prmter.

H Controls and indicators

Now let’s go over the controls and indicators of the printer,
starting with the control panel on the right. There are three in­dicators and three keys on the control panel.

-

9

I

Figure 2-2. The control panel.

POWER INDICATOR - Glows orange when the power is

on. This indicator flickers when the printer runs out of paper
and when certain printer malfunctions occur.

NLQ KEY and INDICATOR - Changes the character style

(draft or NLQ) when the On Line indicator is off, and glows
green when the NLQ mode is selected.

PAPER FEED KEY - Advances the paper one line at a time

when the On Line indicator is off. If you hold the key down, you
get consecutive line feeds. If you push the On Line key while

holding this key, you can advance the paper to the top of the
next page or a new form.
ON LINE KEY and INDICATOR - Glows green when the

printer is ready to receive data from your computer (on line).
When the printer is off line, it sends a signal to the computer in­dicating that it cannot accept data. Pressing the On Line key
switches the printer between on line and off line.

n Extra functions

There are seven more functions that are not directly specified
on the control panel. You can access four of them by pressing
one particular key when you turn on the power; three others are
activated by pressing two control keys at once.

I

Figure 2-3.

Extra functions while turning on the printer.

We’ll explain about the “Panel” mode, which is powerful func-

tion of the printer. Some commercial software does not support

defining your own selections. In this case, use the “Panel”
mode.

Selection of the Panel Mode at power-on ensures that your
choices remain in effect until you turn the power off. This
means that the printer will ignore any codes sent by the soft­ware that you are using. The Panel Mode allows selection of the
character quality (Draft or NLQ).

If you want to set the Panel mode, press the NLQ key on the

control panel when you turn on the power. After a second, you
will hear a beep, and the ON LINE indicator will glow. If you
want to change the character, press the ON LINE key, press the
NLQ key once again to make your choice, and press the ON
LINE key again.

Forward micro-feed

Reverse micro-feed

I

* *

I

**

-

-

Form feed’

+*: Hold down
*: Press

Ggure 2-4.

You can set many functions by the combinations of the

control panel keys while in the Off Line mode.

When you want to align the print start position, you can set it
by the micro-feed operation with the control panel, instead of
turning the platen knob manually.

1.

Set the Off Line mode by pressing the On Line key.

2.

While holding down the On Line key, press one of the
following keys.

Paper Feed key - Forward micro-feed

NLQ key - Reverse micro-feed

3. When you can set the print start position, release the
Paper Feed key or the NLQ key first, then release the
On Line key.

n Other controls

There are other controls, not connected to the control panel.

Some of the more important ones are:

POWER SWITCH - The switch that turns the printer on

and off is at the back, on the left side.
PLATEN KNOB - This knob is at the middle of the right
side and lets you turn the platen by hand, like a typewriter.

Caution: Turn the platen knob only with the Power switch ~$5

Turning the knob with the power on could damage the drive
gears.
RELEASE LEVER - The release lever is on top of the
printer, near the left rear corner. It controls how strongly the
paper is held against the platen. The release lever has four posi­tions: the top setting is used for inserting paper, the next is for

single sheets, the third is for sprocket-feed paper, and the bot-

tom one is used when adjusting the paper.
PAPER BAIL - The bail is the movable bar that holds the
paper against the platen. Its position depends on the setting of
the release lever.
DIP SWITCHES - There is one set of eight switches that is

used in interfacing the printer to your particular computer.
There are also switches to set page length, and international
character set. See Appendix A for a complete list and explana-

tion.

i
E

SELECTING AND LOADING PAPER

Your printer handles two basic types of paper - single sheets
(stationery, envelopes, multipart business forms, etc.) and con­tinuous paper (fan-fold perforated paper).

The release lever controls the pressure of the paper against
the platen, It has four settings:

12 -

.wo

3 - The top setting is used when you want to load paper in

the printer.
P - The second setting is for normal single sheets.
C - The third is for sprocket-feed paper.

4lU - The bottom one is used when you want to release the

paper completely to adjust it.

Release lever

‘igure 2-5. Use friction feed for single sheets and tractor feed for

.

contmuous paper.

The paper bail holds the paper against the platen according to
the setting of the release lever. The bail is opened when the
release lever is in the top position, closed when the lever is in
the second or third positions, and opened by the printer when
the lever is in the bottom position.

n Loading single sheets

Instead of feeding the paper in manually by turning the platen
knob, you can use the release lever for automatic feeding (the
printer must be turned on). Single sheets from 5.5 to 8.5 inches
wide can be used:

1. Flip the clamp Levers backward and move the sprockets
on the tractor feed unit all the way to the ends.

-I

13

-.2

Figure 2-6. Move the sprockets on the tracktor feed unit all the

way to the ends.

2. Install the printer cover on the printer.

3. Set the release lever for single sheets - the second posi­tion from the top.

4. Insert a sheet of paper to the paper chute on the printer
cover.

5. Turn on the power switch. (The Power indicator will
blink because there is no paper.)

6. Now set the release lever to the auto-feed setting - the

top position. The printer will advance the paper
automatically.

7. When the paper stops, set the release lever for single

sheets again.

To align paper that is not in straight -

l Set the release lever to the adjustment setting.
l Straighten the paper and adjust it for the margins you

want.

l Move the release lever back to its original setting.

14

Release lever

F

‘igure 2-7.

the release lever.

You can insert a sheet of paper automatically by using

n Loading sprocket-feed paper

This is standard computer paper, with the holes along the
sides and perforations between the sheets, It is also called
sprocket, punched, fan-fold, or just plain “computer paper”. It
can be as narrow as 4.5 inches, and up to 10 inches wide.

1.

Remove the printer cover.

2.

Place a stack of fan-fold paper behind the printer.

3.

Turn on the printer and set the release lever for
sprocket-feed paper.

4.

Open the sprocket covers, on the right and left sprocket
units, as shown in Figure 2-8.

5. Flip the clamp levers backward. This allows the two

sprocket units to move freely right and left so you can
align them with the holes in the paper.

Feed the end of the paper into the slot next to the platen

6.

cover plate.

Fit the holes in the paper over the sprocket pins so the

7.

paper is even, and clamp the sprocket units in place.

Figure 2-8. Open the sprocket covers to expose the sprocket teeth.

8. Check that the paper is still positioned correctly, and
close the sprocket covers.

9. Set the release lever to the auto-feed setting. The printer
will advance the paper automatically.

10. When the paper stops, set the release lever for sprocket­feed paper again.

11. Install the paper separator on the printer, as shown in
Figure 2-9. Then, install the printer cover.

Figure 2-9. Ready to load the sprocket-feed paper

16

ADJUSTING THE PRINT HEAD

The distance between the print head and the platen must be
adjusted to accommodate papers of different thicknesses. To
make this adjustment, move the adjustment lever, which is
under the printer cover and immediately in front of the release
lever (Figure 2-10). Pulling the adjustment lever towards you
will widen the gap; pushing it away from you will narrow the

gap.

There are four positions; you can feel the lever clicking into
the various notches. The first step (shown) is the one most corn­monly used for single sheets of paper.

Try different positions until you get the best printing results.

Release lever

Figure 2-10. The adjustment lever allows for different thicknesses

of paper.

TESTING THE PRINTER

Your printer has two built-in programs that printout sample
lines of letters, numbers, and other characters - to show you
that everything’s in good working order. Self-test 1 is the long

version, and self-test 2 is the short one. You can use either one
to show the characters available in the printer, to check the in­stallation of the ribbon and paper, and to check the adjustment
of the head-to-platen gap.

You can print the self-test without hooking up the printer to

your computer. Simply:

1. Plug in the printer (don’t turn it on yet).

2. Insert a sheet of paper (or sprocket paper, either one).

3. While holding down one of the following keys, turn on
the power switch:

Paper Feed key - Self-test 1 (long)
On Line key - Self-test 2 (short)

Self-test 1

I Standard mode I

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1 “~0%~‘O~+,-./0123Y567ES:;~-~T@~ECDEFGHIJKLnNoPDRSTUUWXYZC\l~~’~bcd~f~h~~klmno

?"I$Z&'Or+,-./Ol134S67~9~~~->?~~~CgEfgHlJKL~NOP~RS~UUU~YIC~3~~'abcdrfghi~kl~n~

[IBM

/1.,1L’;4w!7f39: ;~-~70~6CI)EF6H,Jt.LMNOPORSTUVWXYZL\I’~~ebcdc~gh..,k~~~,no

\7ePBCD~fGHlJbLMN*PU~~~"""~~iL-,,,'-'~b~~~fg,~~~~l~,,~

Self-test

Figure 2- 11. The show you the printer print.

When want to the long function, turn

the power

CONNECTING THE PRINTER

Now that you’ve assembled and tested your printer, all that re-

mains is to connect it to your computer as follows:

Interface (

Interface cable

Figure 2-12. Connect the cable like this.

1. Make sure that both your computer and printer are
turned off.

2. Connect the printer end of the interface cable to the con­nector socket at the right rear of the printer as shown in
Figure 2-12.

3. Connect the other end of the cable to your computer as
described in the computer manual.

CHAPTER 3

PRINTING WITH BASIC

Subjects covered in Chapter 3 include-

. Listing BASIC programs on the printer

l How a program prints things

l Control codes, escape codes, and command syn-

tax

l Near letter quality (NLQ) characters
l Fixed and proportional character spacing
l Special printing-

Printing in italics
Underlining
Superscripts and subscripts
Boldface and emphasized text
Mixing print modes

To show you how to control your printer from a program, we
have chosen BASIC because it is easy to learn and easy to use.
Also, more personal computer users program in BASIC than in
any other language.

The rest of this manual will show you a little BASIC - just
enough for you to use your printer. We’re not going to try to
make you an expert programmer, though, only get you started.
There are many excellent books that will teach you BASIC, so if
you discover that you like to program you should have no trou­ble learning more about it.

20

SOME BASICS OF BASIC

n First steps

The first things that a beginner learns to do are to list a pro­gram and to print a character string. Certainly these are the
easiest operations one can do, but even they may depend on
what computer you have. In Microsoft BASIC, we can list all
the steps in a program by entering LIST. This lists them on the
CRT screen; if we want to print them on a printer, we prefix the
command with an L (enter LLIST).

The Microsoft BASIC command for outputting information is
PRINT. Like the LIST command, this displays the information
on the CRT screen so we have to add an L (-+ LPRINT) if we

want to use the printer. Just put whatever you want to print be­tween quotes and after LPRINT (anything enclosed in quotes is
called a character string). For example, we would use LPRINT

“Hello!” to output “Hello!” to the printer. We’ll see later how to

LPRINT more than just character strings.

We started with Microsoft BASIC because it is the most wide­ly used version of BASIC. The programs in this manual are
written in Microsoft BASIC so they should run on most com­puters. But if strange things happen when you try to run a pro­gram, check the BASIC manual that came with your computer.

Let’s consider Apple 11 computers for a minute. These
popular computers use their own brand of BASIC. To use an
Apple II, enter the following-

PR#l PR#l
LIST PRINT "Hello!"
PR#O

PR#O

The PR#l tells the Apple to send everything to the printer,

the LIST or PRINT command sends it, and the PR#O returns
output to the screen.

Now that we know how to address the printer, let’s try listing
a BASIC program. We will load a program into memory ready
to program printer operation - just as soon as we learn a little
bit about the ASCII codes.

n ASCII codes and the CHR$ function

You can talk to your computer in BASIC, but your computer
and your printer talk to each other in what are known as ASCII
codes. In the ASCII code, each number from 0 to 255 has a par­ticular meaning - 36, for example, makes the printer print a
dollar sign. Some numbers cause the printer to do other things,

too. For instance, sending a 7 sounds the printer’s bell.

Taken together, these numbers and their meanings make up
the ASCII code (pronounced ask-lzey), which stands for the

American Standard Code for Information Interchange. There are

ASCII codes for all the letters of the alphabet (upper case and
lower case), 0 to 9, most punctuation marks, and some (but not
all) of the functions of the printer.

There are a number of different ways to represent an ASCII
code, depending on how you are using it. For example, the
ASCII codes for the upper-case letter “A” are 65 (decimal) or
&H41 (hexadecimal). Or you can just call it “A”. Appendix B
shows all of the ASCII codes.

BASIC uses the CHR$ function to represent ASCII
characters and many functions. To print the letter “A” we

would enter LPRINT CHR$(65). To make the printer’s bell

sound, we would enter LPRINT CHR$(7). In general, we print a
character by entering LPRINT CHR$(ASCII code) to the

printer.

We can also use hex ASCII codes. Although we use only
decimal ASCII codes in this manual, in some applications it will
help if you understand what a hex code is. “Hex” is short for hex­adecimal and refers to a base-16 number (the numbers we use in
everyday life are base 10). Since the hex system needs 16 digits,
it uses the numerals 0 through 9 and also the letters A through
F. In BASIC programs, you can always tell that a number is in
hexadecimal by the “&H” immediately preceding it. The ASCII
code for the letter “A” (65 in decimal) is &H41 in hex.

n Control codes

ASCII codes with values of 32 or less do not correspond to
keys on the keyboard. These codes control many of the printer’s
functions, so we call them control codes. To enter a control code
from the keyboard, we have to press two keys at the same time

22

- the “control” key and one other. The other key determines

what code is sent - pressing the control (CTRL) key and A

sends ASCII code 1, CTRL B sends ASCII code 2, and so on.

Your printer has a lot of control codes to let you do some
useful things. Let’s try one that we’ve mentioned several times
already:

' Demo of ASCII code
:i LPRINT CJlR$(7)
30 END

RUN

That’s the printer’s bell (we call it that even though it sounds
like a buzzer). We’ll learn more about it in later - we just
wanted to show you a control code that would get your attention
right away!

There are four common ways of referring to a control code:
the name of the code or its abbreviation, the decimal ASCII
value, the hexadecimal ASCII value, and the “CTRL-” value.
For example, the ASCII code that causes the printer to advance
the paper one line is decimal 10. This code may be referred to
by any of the following:

line feed - the name of the code
(LF> - its abbreviation
ASCII 10 - its decimal value
ASCII &HOA - its hexadecimal value (the &H

signifies hex)
CHR$( 10) - the way it’s used in BASIC
CTRL- J

- the way you send it from a keyboard

Of course, most of the time we don’t need to bother with
these. The computer is smart enough to know that when we
press the “A” key we want to print the letter “A” - it takes
care of all the intermediate steps.

Appendix B is a table that shows the various names for each
code so you can convert back and forth. The microcomputer
world is not very consistent in describing ASCII codes, so it’s
important that you have a basic knowledge of them.

23

n The escape codes

Back when the ASCII system was set up, computer equip­ment was relatively simple and thirty-three control codes were
considered sufficient at the time. The American Standards peo­ple realized that eventually more control codes would be need­ed, so they included the escape (ESC) code to allow almost any
number of additional codes to be defined when they became
necessary.

ESC allows us to “escape” from the ordinary set of control
codes so we can specify additional functions and other informa­tion needed for a printer function. In this manual, we’ll write the

ESC code inside broken brackets, like this - (ESC).

(ESC) - decimal 27 - is always followed by at least one
other number; it is never used alone. The whole series of related
numbers is called an escape sequence.

n A note on command syntax

Because the readers of this manual will be running such a
wide variety of applications on so many different computers, we
can’t show the exact way of sending codes to the printer for
each one of them. Instead, as we introduce you to each new com­mand, we will show the commands as in this example:

(ESC) “W” 1

This command turns on expanded printing. (ESC), as we
mentioned earlier, is the escape code (which is ASCII code 27).
A letter or number in quotes (such as the “W” above) means that
the character should be sent to the printer, but without the

quotes. In our example, you should send a capital W following
the escape code. In BASIC, you could do this in a couple of
ways: by sending the character itself (e.g. LPRINT “W”;), or by

using the CHR$ function to send the ASCII code for the
character (e.g. LPRINT CHR$(87);).

Many of printer commands end with a 1 or 0. When shown as
in the above example (i.e., no quotes and no “CHR$“), you can
use either ASCII code 1 (i.e., CHR$(l)) or the character “1”
(which is ASCII code 49). The same principle applies to com­mands ending with 0.

24

So for our example above, any of these BASIC statements will

have the same result:

LPRINT CHR$(27);CHR$(87);CHR$(l)
LPRINT CHR$(27>;CHR$(87);CHR$(49)
LPRINT CHRS(27) ;"W";CHR$(l)

LPRINT CHR$(27);"W";CHR$(49)
LPRINT CHR$(27);"Wl"

Even though there are many commands that require the use
of ASCII code 0 (the (NUL) character), the number “0” (zero or
ASCII code 48) cannot be substituted. In these cases, instead of
an unadorned 0 we will show CHR$(O) each time these com­mands are referenced.

That’s it for the basics. You are now ready to learn how to use
the many features of your printer.

SOME SPECIAL KINDS OF TEXT

If you looked carefully at your printer’s self test, you probably
noticed that it can print in italics. But that’s not all! Your printer
can underline characters, print superscripts and subscripts, and
perhaps most exciting, print near letter quality characters.

n Near Letter Quality characters

This printer’s Near Letter Quality (sometimes abbreviated as
NLQ) character set is ideal for correspondence and other impor­tant printing, as it produces very high quality characters. Nor­mally, your printer prints draft quality characters. This is ade­quate for most work and has the fastest printing speed. For the
final printout, try NLQ. The program below shows an example.

10 ' Demo of NLQ character set
20 LPRINT CHR$(27) ;"xl";
30 LPRINT "This line shows NEAR LETTER QUALITY!"
40 LPRINT CHR$(27);"xO";
50 LPRINT "This line shows standard print."