Modes For Pitches; Pica And Elite Modes; Pica And Elite M - Epson FX-80 User Manual

The dots printed in these intermediate positions actually overlap with
those in the main columns. If you look through Appendix B, you'll
notice that none of the ROM characters use consecutive main and
intermediate columns in the same row.
There is a reason for this. Amazing as it seems, the printer is able to
reach into memory to recall a character's dot matrix pattern and print
the character in 1/160th of a second. At that speed, the print head is
simply moving too fast to pull the pins back and forth in time to print
an overlapping dot. This fact is crucial in character design, as you will
see in Chapter 17.
Modes for Pitches
Three of the FX-80's many modes produce characters in different
widths, or "pitches." You may recognize two of these pitches as stan-
dard character widths used on typewriters; the third produces a nar-
rower character. Each of these is covered below, followed by a discus-
sion of how the FX-80 handles conflicts between its print modes.
Pica
and Elite
Modes
At start-up the FX-80 prints 10 characters per inch (cpi). This is the
same width, or "pitch" as that of a typewriter's Pica character set. The
FX-80 can also print characters in an Elite pitch (12 cpi), which gives
96 characters per line instead of the usual 80.
Changing the print pitch between Pica and Elite does not change the
number of columns in each character, nor does it change the pattern
used to create each character. It simply moves the columns closer to-
gether or farther apart to change the width of each character. To see
how this works, compare the Pica and Elite Ms in Figure 3-5.
60 columns/inch
Figure 3·5. Pica and Elite M.
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