Star Micronics NB-15 User Manual page 112

104
THE PRINT MODE AND THE DOWNLOAD CHARACTERS
In the example program above, before we defined the new
characters, we selected the Draft print mode. By doing this, we
caused user-defined characters to print as draft characters
because user-defined characters assume the mode that is in ef-
fect at the time they are defined.
The modes that affect user-defined characters are draft, and
letter quality printing. (The (ESC) "x" n command selects be-
tween draft (n = 0) and letter quality (n= l).)
The commands for defining characters, selecting the
download character set, and copying ROM are exactly the same
for each of the user-defined print styles. The print mode in ef-
fect when the characters are defined determines the mode of the
user-defined characters.
The print mode determines the size of the grid upon which the
characters are designed and the speed at which they print.
Table 8-l shows the different character grid sizes for each of the
print modes.
Table 8-l
Download character design grids
Draft characters
Letter Qualitv characters
ml
mO+ml +m2
(Maximum)
(Maximum)
9 12
15 18
n Draft download characters
As you've seen, draft characters are designed on a grid which
is 9 dots wide by 24 dots high (plus up to three columns of dots
for space between characters). Draft download characters print
at the same high speed as normal draft characters, even though
they may print with more dots and may even be designed for pro-
portional spacing.
n Letter quality download characters
If you select letter quality printing with the (ESC) "x" 1 com-
mand or by the control panel, you can design your own
characters on a grid which is 15 dots wide by 24 dots high. Each
character can be as wide as 18 dots, including space on either
side of the character. The dot columns are spaced closer