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8 SATO RISC Printers
1. Introduction Programming Manual
1.1 The SATO RISC Programming Language
A programming language for a printer is a familiar concept to most pro-
grammers. It is a group of commands that are designed to use the internal
intelligence of the printer. The commands, which are referred to as RISC
Command Codes, contain non-printable ASCII characters (such as
<STX>, <ETX>, <ESC>) and printable characters. These commands
must be assembled into an organized block of code to be sent as one data
stream to the printer, which in turn interprets the command codes and
generates the desired label output. The programmer is free to use any
programming language available to send the desired data to the SATO
RISC printer.
The command codes used by the SATO RISC Printers are based upon
“Escape” (1B hexadecimal) sequences. Typically there are four types of
command sequences:
<ESC>{Command}
These commands generally tell the printer to perform a specific action,
like “clear the memory.”
<ESC>{Command} {Data}
Commands with this format tell the printer to perform a specific action
which is dependent upon the following data, like “print X labels”, where
the value for X is contained in the data.
<ESC>{Command} {Parameter}
These commands set the operational parameters of the printer, like “set
theprintspeedto3.”
<ESC> {Command} {Parameter} {Data}
Some commands can contain both Parameter and Data elements, such
as “print a Code 39 symbol containing the data.”
1.3 Selecting Protocol Control Codes
Protocol codes are the special control characters that prepare the printer
to receive instructions. For example, the <ESC> character tells the printer
that a command code will follow and the <ENQ> character asks for the
printer status.
There are two pre-defined different sets of Protocol Control codes to
choose from. Each set is made up of six special characters. The Standard
Protocol Control codes are non-printable characters, and the Non-Stan-
dard Protocol Control codes are printable characters. The Non-Standard
set may be useful on host computers using protocol converters or in an
application where non-printable ASCII characters cannot be sent from the
host. This manual uses the Standard Protocol Control codes for all of the
examples. Alternately, the user may define and download a set of custom
Protocol Control Codes.