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From: zjdg11@hou.amoco.com (Jim Graham)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: 8-bit chars in printing (WAS:  Re: ALED goes to the wastebasket....)
Message-ID: <1991Jun18.172133.9891@hou.amoco.com>
Date: 18 Jun 91 17:21:33 GMT
References: <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com> <3257@krafla.rhi.hi.is>
Sender: news@hou.amoco.com
Organization: Amoco
Lines: 59

In article <3257@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes:

> Some products are great and works fine. BUT then there are those
> morons that *insist* on masking that bl*ody 8th bit!!

To avoid a repeat of the mistake made by the writer of aled (and yes, I see
it as a mistake....even w/in the U.S. --- after all, how many doc files use
8-bit characters just as themselves...quite a few that I've seen), I'd like
to pose a new question to the group.

I'm (eventually...as soon as I get more documentation into the code) going to
post a program to alt.sources that will use a reduced fontsize and
interlineskip, combined with subscripting to produce very small output on
Epson-flavored dot-matrix printers.  (On a Panasonic KX-P1124, which emulates
an Epson LQ-2500, after margins, it gets 105 lines/page, and 160 chars/line
in single column mode, or 77 chars/column in double-column mode.)  One of the
things I've been concerned about is how to handle printing 8-bit characters.

I *** WAS *** just planning on including the escape sequence required to tell
the printer how to do 8-bit chars in the config file.....  It's starting to 
sound as though that may not be the best solution, however.  If I do that,
will that work in conjunction with the device drivers, etc., used in other
countries that I've been reading about for the last few minutes?

Do printers in other countries already know how to handle these characters?
Is there even a need to tell the printer anything beyond the fact that the
8-bit character that's coming is a character, and not a control sequence?
If so, could that still be handled by sending a (perhaps different) escape
sequence ahead of the character?

When I do finally post this thing, my intent is to make it as adaptable as
I can...without requiring the person on the receiving end to have to modify
the code themselves to make it so.

I'm open for suggestions on the best way to handle this.  Please send via
e-mail, as I don't always (in fact, rarely do) get time to catch all of the 
articles in all of the groups I'm subscribed to, and could easily miss
responses to the net.  I'll post a followup if there is sufficient interest.

As I said, I am open to (constructive) suggestions....flames, however, if
someone feels the need, should simply be directed to /dev/null (if you don't,
I will).

Thanks in advance for your comments.....
   --jim

Standard disclaimer....These thoughts are mine, not my employer's.  Same
  applies to the program that I speak of....as far as I know, Amoco doesn't
  even know it exists (or care, for that matter).

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Internet:  zjdg11@hou.amoco.com    or    grahj@gagme.chi.il.us
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