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176 SATO RISC Printers
5. Interface Specifications Programming Manual
Bi-Directional Communications
This is a two-way communications protocol between the host computer
and the printer, thus enabling the host to check printer status. When this
protocol is selected, there is no busy signal from the printer (pin 20, DTR,
is always high). The host must request the complete status from the
printer, including ready/busy. Whenever the host requests printer status,
it transmits an ENQ to the printer and the printer will respond with its sta-
tus within five milliseconds. If printing, it will respond upon finishing the
current label, then resume printing. In order for this protocol to work prop-
erly, pin 6 (DTR) and pin 5 (CTS)mustbeheldhighbythehost.Oneway
to ensure these pins are always in the correct state is to tie pin 20 (DTR)
to pin 6 (DSR) and pin 4 (RTS)topin5(CTS) at the printer end of the
cable.
Cable Requirements
If a CAN (18 hexadecimal) is received by the printer, it will cancel the cur-
rent print job and clear all data from the receive buffer.
Status Response
The Bi-Com protocol is an advanced version of bi-directional communica-
tions where the printer can also report the number of labels remaining to
be printed for the current print job. Upon receipt of an ENQ command, the
printer responds with nine bytes of status information bounded by an STX/
ETX pair. The Bi-Com protocol works only in the Multi Job Buffer mode.
The status information is defined as follows:
<STX>{ 2 Byte ID}{1 Status Byte}{6 Byte Label Remaining}<ETX>
ID - This is a two byte number identifying the current print job ID. The print
job ID is defined using the <ESC>ID Job ID command transmitted with
the print job (see Job ID Store in the command listing for more information
on how to use this command). The range is from 00 to 99.
HOST INTERCONNECTION PRINTER
FG 1FG(FrameGround)
RD 2 TD (Transmit Data)
TD 3RD(ReceiveData)
4 RTS (Request to Send)
5CTS(CleartoSend)
6 DSR (Data Set Ready)
20 DTR (Data Terminal Ready)
SG 7 SG (Signal Ground)