Star Micronics 150 Printer User Manual


 
Control Codes Overview PcOS Series 150 Programmer's Guide
Page 12 Rev G 12/14/99
Chapter 4:
Control Codes Overview
This programmer’s guide is designed to help users of the PcOS Series 150 Printer develop applications.
The Series 150 Printer is a point-of-sale (POS) printer that has several features not normally found on
general purpose printers. Because of these special features, the Series 150 Printer has distinct control
codes. This manual documents the control codes with an emphasis on those codes that are unique to the
Series 150 Printer.
All PcOS Series 150 Printers have either a serial or parallel interface. Both interfaces provide the same
printer control
3
and use the same codes.
Nomenclature
When describing control codes, there is often confusion as to whether the description is decimal,
hexadecimal, or ASCII. To minimize the confusion, this manual will use the following nomenclature
when describing control code sequences.
[ ] encloses a control character. This is a single, 8-bit value as defined in the standard
ASCII tables. An example would be [ESC], which would represent a 1BH or 27
decimal.
< > encloses an 8-bit value in decimal format. This value will be from 0 to 255. An
example would be <2>, which would represent 02H or 2 decimal.
<n> indicates a variable parameter. <n> can have a value of from 0 to 255. The meaning
of <n> is described and defined in the description of the command.
<n
1
> <n
2
> indicates that there are two parameters, <n
1
> and <n
2
>, where both can have values
from 0 to 255.
<m
1
> <m
2
> is an IPCL parameter consisting of two digits where <m
1
>
and <m
2
> are ASCII
characters from 0 to 9. The values will be combined to form a value from 0 to 99. If
<m
3
> is included, the parameter will be combined to form a value from 0 to 999.
If two values are specified, there must be two bytes added to the IPCL code. In other
words, if the command specifies <m
1
> <m
2
> and the desired value is 5, the value
must be specified as 05.
x (all other characters in control strings) represent ASCII characters. For example,
[ESC] 1 would represent 1BH followed by 31H.
The CFG150 configuration and demonstration program
4
uses the same nomenclature. Print examples
shown in this manual are available for CFG150.
3
The serial and IEEE 1284 interfaces provide a few additional interface capabilities over the standard
parallel interface. Both serial and IEEE 1284 interfaces provide a bidirectional data path.
4
CFG150 is available from Ithaca Peripherals. The program runs on IBM personal computers and
compatibles.