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Two important details make LaserJet III commands different from the other
printer emulations. First, all Escape sequences end with a capital letter. If you
don’t make the last character uppercase, your printer won’t know when the
Escape sequence ends and will treat following characters as part of the same
command.
Second, in LaserJet III commands each number or character you put after the
<ES0 code is an actual ASCII symbol. With the other emulations, usually
any number you put after an <ES0 code identifies a character in that
position in the ASCII1 table.
For example, the LaserJet III command that sets the right margin to column
65 is:
<ESC> &a 65 M
which you would code in BASIC as:
10 LPRINT CHR$(27);"&a65M"
That command sends your printer the symbols “6” and “5,” which its
LaserJet III program interprets as the column number.
However if you were using Epson EX-800 emulation, the command that sets
the right margin looks like this:
<ES0 Q 65
which in BASIC you would write this way:
10 LPRINT CHR$(27);"Q";CHR$(65)
That command sends the printer whatever character happens to be in ASCII
position 65. Your printer’s Epson Program, though, interprets it only as a
decimal number meaning column 65.
Combining Escape sequences
Later in this chapter we describe one way to select a font, by just specifying
what font attributes you want, such as bold or proportional spacing. If you
select a font by specifying every one of its attributes, you can be certain that
you’re selecting successfully. But it could mean a fair bit of repetitive typing
each time you choose a font. This applies to other commands too, not just font
selection.
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