Epson MX-80 User Manual page 52

Chapter 9
Underlining
Many computers do not have the capability of sending an ASCII character to
temporarily suppress the Line Feed when a Carriage Return is sent. It is therefore
only with great agony that we can do underlining. The zealots among us can refer ,
to Appendix C and throw switches 1-2, 1-3 and 2-3 as necessary to do it. For all
practical purposes, it's impractical!
Underlining should not be confused with just moving down one line and printing
a series of dashes. True underlining requires that we print the line to which we
want to add whole or partial underlining. We then Return the Carriage (print
head), suppress the Line Feed so the paper does not advance, and print the under-
line character, ASCII 95. This is called "overstriking". The underline character
is printed in position 10 or 11 in our 1 2 x 6 matrix. Users with LF suppression
can also do such things as slashing zeros, sevens, etc.
In its absence, there is a somewhat cumbersome way to underline using the
vertical spacing tricks we just learned. It is practical for such things as report
headings or special emphasis, where the result is deemed worthy of the extra
programming effort.
Type in this NEW program:
10 L P R I N T C H R $ ( 2 7 ) " A " C H R $ ( 1 3 3 ) C H R $ ( 2 7 ) " 2 "
2 0 L P R I N T "UNDERLINE"
3 0 L P R I N T C H R $ ( 2 7 ) " 1 " S T R I N G $ ( 9 , 4 5 )
40 L P R I N T " I S F A K E D . " ;
50 L P R I N T C H R $ ( 2 7 ) " A " C H R $ ( 1 4 0) C H R $ ( 2 7 ) " 2 "
6 0 L P R I N T " I S
NOTHING SACRED?"
and RUN.
That result isn't too bad, is it? Here is how the program works:
Line 10 sets line spacing to 5 dots (5+1 28) & activates
Line 20 prints something we want to underline
Line 30 sets the line spacing to mode " 1 " — 7/72", and prints 9 dashes (not
underlines) via STRINGS
Line 40 prints some more text to show that it looks OK
The ; suppresses the LF
Line 50 returns the line spacing to 1 2 dots
Line 60 prints more text to show all is back to normal
. . . and that's plenty to think about in this Chapter.
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