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MFJ-1278B MULTI-MODE BASIC OPERATION
Display FAX Picture on Computer Screen & Save it to Disk
The MFJ-1278B firmware does not support printing to your computer screen or allow you to
save FAX pictures in disk files. Printing of fax pictures to your computer screen, and saving
pictures to disk are a function of the computer software. Any good terminal program has a
save to disk routine. In order to print the fax pictures to your screen, you need special
software for your particular computer that provides this feature.
For IBM PC and compatibles, Macintosh, Amiga and Commodore C64/128 computer users,
MFJ offers an optional Starter Pack that will allow you to receive SSTV/FAX in near real
time to your computer screen. SSTV/FAX pictures can also be saved on disk with software
supplied with the Starter Pack. Pictures saved on disk may be re-transmitted or recalled to
print to the screen at any time.
If you are using one of the above terminal program you should first turn PRINTGRA OFF.
Follow the instructions given in the software documentation to receive FAX pictures on
the screen or to save the pictures to disk files.
For those who wish to write special software to handle FAX graphics and display it on
screen, the following information may be useful for you.
When the PRINTGRA command of the MFJ-1278B is ON, FAX pictures received will be
sent to the graphics printer attached to the MFJ-1278B printer port. If the PRINTGRA
command is OFF, then the MFJ-1278B will direct the picture graphics to your terminal thru
the RS-232C port of the MFJ-1278B. This FAX format thru the RS-232 port will be in either
2 level (MULTIFAX OFF) or multi-level raw data format (MULTIFAX ON). The default is
the 2 level data format. To save to disk or display on your computer screen, the terminal
program you used must be compatible with the multi-level raw data format or it must be
compatible with the 2 level "FAX frame" format:
LF, CR, ESC x x, ESC x x x, <<nnn character of graphics>>
Two Level FAX Picture Format
The FAX frame sent to the user's terminal contains carriage control information, graphics
setup information and "nnn" columns of 6-row high dot graphics.
Special note: In order to allow the FAX frames to pass through without special handling, each
character in the frame is biased upward with the value $30 (Hex), so only
characters of ASCII value $30 through $7F are sent to the terminal.
A few side effects of the special handling: