Epson MX-80 User Manual page 59

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Advanced Printing and Endless Form Control

Enter this NEW program:

1 0 LPRINT C H R $ ( 2 7 ) " D" CHR$ ( 1 3 8 ) CHR$ ( 1 5 8 ) C H R $ ( 1 8 8 )

C H R $ ( 1 2 8 ) ;

20 L P R I N T CHR$ ( 1 3 7 ) " S E E " ;

3 0 L P R I N T CHR$ ( 1 3 7 ) " S P O T " ;

40 L P R I N T C H R $ ( 1 3 7 ) "RUN"

then RUN.

Here's what it's all about:

Line 10, using Esc"D" opened the door to accept H TABs

Line 10 set TABs at 10, 30 and 60 using C H R $ ( # # + 128)

Line 10 closed the TAB door with a NULL, CHR$(0 + 1 28)

Line 20,30 and 40 called the TABs, with CHR$(9 + 1 28)

If you find the advantages of this system a bit elusive, welcome to the crowd. It

seems like a lot of work to TAB when we can (the computer allowing) do the

same thing in the BASIC program.

There are some advantages to weigh, however.

FIRST: It does let us TAB beyond the limits of many computers without hav-

ing to resort to cumbersome PRINT statements with lots of blank spaces. This

is especially valuable when printing in the 132 column mode.

SECOND: By setting all the TABs in one line, changes to all lines which call

them can be made by changing that single line. (True, the same thing could

be done in BASIC.)

Anyway, that's how we can set TABs in the Printer, as distinguished from

"TABbing" built into the program software.