User's Manual

ICL 2900 VME/B TAPE FORMAT
16-2 XEROX LASER PRINTING SYSTEMS TAPE FORMATS MANUAL
Bytes 3 and 4 of the record preamble contain information concerning
spanned records, but spanned records are not processed. If spanned
records are encountered, the tape being processed is considered to
have an invalid format, and the job aborts with appropriate messages
displayed.
ICL 2900 VME/B fixed blocks have the following format:
Figure 16-2. ICL 2900 VME/B fixed block data format
Carriage control conventions
The ICL 2900 VME/B tape format allows printer carriage control
codes, called format effectors, to be embedded throughout the user
portion of a record. However, the Xerox/OSS processes only format
effectors that appear and begin in the first four bytes of the user
portion of a record.
Format effectors There are two types of carriage controls: normal format effectors and
embedded format effectors. Normal format effectors are one or two
byte codes which appear and begin in the first four bytes of a record.
Embedded format effectors are also one or two bytes in length, but
can appear anywhere in the user portion of a record.
Format effectors (FE) must adhere to the following restrictions:
• The first or only byte of the first FE in a record must be in the
first byte of the user portion of a record.
• Multiple FEs must be contiguous, as the first byte encountered
that is not a valid FE is considered the start of print data.
• The first or only byte of all format effectors for a record must be
contained in the first four bytes of the user portion of a record.