Operation Manual

Step 5 Creating the character
Let us make a Greek character, the capital psi:
0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
128
• • • •
• • •
32
• • •
16
• • •
•
8
•
4
•
2
•
• • • •
128 96 17 0 145 110 145 0 17 96 128
The reason for this step is to convert a character pattern into a
string
of bytes which can be transmitted to the printer. Each
column is represented by one 8-bit binary number (also called a
byte!). This
byte can be calculated by adding the decimal values of
the dots that should be printed. For example in the first column the
dots with the value 32 and 64 should be set. That means the first
byte has the value 96 decimal and can be sent to the printer as the
BASIC command CHR$(96). So we can prepare the data string for
the example character as follows:
CHR$(128);CHR$(96);CHR$(17);CHR$(0);CHR$(145);
CHR$(11
0) ;CHR$(145) ;CHR$(0) ;CHR$(17) ;CHR$(96);
CHR$(128)
Epson FX Mode Advanced Features 6- 5