Star Micronics 8 Series Printer User Manual


 
o x 27
1x 26
0x 25
0x 24
1x
23
0
x 22
1x 2’
ox
zone
0100
4
=
o
= 64
=
o
n
o
=
8
=0
=
2
=
Q
74 Decimal
digits
1010 Binary
A
Hexadecimal
The ASCIItablein theTechnicalSupplementshowsall these equivalent
representationsfor the symbolsyour laser printerunderstands.The table
organizestheminascendingorder.Infact,ASCIIisorganizedin awaythat
ac@allymakessense.
Flipbacktherefora quicklookrightnow.Seehowyoucan slicethe table
into clumpsof 16or 32, based on what’sin the zone portion under the
hexadecimalcolumn?Theseclumpsmakesubgroupsof similarsymbols:
hex 00 to IF arethecommandsymbolscalledcontrolcodes,
hex 20to 40 arcthe commonkeyboardsymbolsandnumerals,
hex 41 to 60 arecapitallettersandthelesscommonkeyboardsymbols,
hex’61to 7F are lowercaselettersanda few finalsymbols.
That takes care of the first 128ASCII symbols.However,nearly every
co’mputerand printer manufacturertreats the second half of the table
differently. Hewlett-Packard,for example, puts a variety of accented
foreignlanguagecharactersintopositions128-255(oftenreferredtoashigh
ASCII). Epson gives you a choice of either italics characters or IBM
charactergraphics.
Control codes
TheASCIItableshowssymbolslikeJor2 thewaytheyactuallyprintonthe
laserprinter.ButASCIIincludesmorethanjust printablecharacters:none
of the controlcodecommandsat thebeginningof thetableactuallyprint.
Instead,when your computersends a controlcode to the laser printer it
makesyourprinterdo otherthings,suchas sounditsbccpcr.
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