Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!nysernic!rpicsb8!csv.rpi.edu!guilford
From: guilford@csv.rpi.edu (Jim Guilford)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Printer troubles
Message-ID: <71@rpicsb8>
Date: Fri, 18-Sep-87 09:46:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: rpicsb8.71
Posted: Fri Sep 18 09:46:49 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 20-Sep-87 02:53:31 EDT
References: <7200009@uiucdcsm>
Sender: nobody@rpicsb8
Reply-To: guilford@csv.rpi.edu (Jim Guilford)
Followup-To: 7200009@uiucdcsm
Organization: RPI CS Dept, Troy, New York
Lines: 39
Keywords: prt: par:
Summary: Are you using the right device

In article <7200009@uiucdcsm> schwager@uiucdcsm.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>Here's an odd little problem I'm having:
>I can't seem to get the ASCII "escape" character to my printer.
>From BASIC, I do a:
>	lprint chr$(27)+"W"+chr$(1)+"hello"
>which is supposed to print the word "hello" double-width, but it
>doesn't.  "hello" is simply printed in normal pica.  I've tried other
>escape codes also, to no avail.  I can power my printer up in Hex mode.
...
>In other words, the escape char and the "W" evaporate.  Any ideas?
...
>-mike schwager
>-- {ihnp4,convex,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!schwager   schwager%uiuc@csnet-relay.arpa
>	University of Illinois, Dept. of Computer Science

I'll try a stab at an idea. Note that I haven't used basic in quite a while,
so I will be taking things froma C, CLI perspective. This may be the cause of
what you are seeing, though. Are you aware that there are two devices that
talk to the printer? There is the par: device which is actually the
parrallel port. This goes directly to the printer (I am assuming that your
prointer is on the parrallel port). Then there is the prt: device which
filters the output before sending it to the printer. In order to handle
different printers in an independant way, the amiga has defined its own set
of printer escape sequences. These are similar but not identical to the ansi
sequences. Programs send these to the prt: device which then translates them
into the sequences needed by the printer as specified in preferences.

What I am trying to say is that if you looked up the sequence in your
printer manual and send it to the prt: device, it may not work. The esc-W
that you send may not match an amiga sequence and get eaten. You should
either use the amiga sequences (I think they are documented in the DOS
manual, but off hand I am not sure), or use the par: device (I needed to do
some hairy things with my printer and had to use par:). I am not sure how
you would do this in basic, but I would guess that you would open "par:" as
a file, and then print #x to it.

--Jim Guilford    (JimG)
guilford@csv.rpi.edu