Epson MX-80 User Manual page 46

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Chapter 9

his is called " d o t matrix" printing. Dots are printed according to a pre-designed

""matrix" or "grid" system, where each letter, number and punctuation mark is

formed by an arrangement of dots. As we have seen, this complex printing process

takes place very quickly.

The needles fire only in groups or clusters. The firing patterns are already pro-

grammed inside the Printer, matching the Alpha/Numeric (Letters and Numbers)

and graphics characters found in our ASCII charts. (No, we cannot fire an indi-

vidual needle.)

Appendix G (Part I) shows all our Alpha/Numeric characters constructed within

a 9 dot high by 5 dot wide matrix. Every letter, number and punctuation

character is designed to fit within that box. (See the lower case letters.)

Notice that the 6th column is always empty. In fact, it isn't even shown. It's

reserved for horizontal spacing between characters.

No Alpha/Numeric character is wider than the "standard" 5 dots. If you look

closely, it might appear that letters, like the " O " are wider. Actually, they con-

tain more than 5 dots across the width, but those dots are spaced a bit closer than

those in a "T". A "W" has even more horizontal dots, but its overall width does

not exceed the width of the "standard" 5 dot pattern. The middle dots are just

compressed to make more attractive characters.

—>Jur smallest Alpha/Numeric character, the period, requires only 4 dots

That makes the highest character resolution " 4 dots".

2 by 2.

Figure 5-3

Graphic characters are a bit different, as shown in Appendix G (Part II) and

Figure 5-4.

Figure 5-4