Epson LX-90TM Manuale Utente

ESCape and ASCII

The details of printer-computer communication are complex, but

for most purposes all you need to know is that the computer sends a

series of codes (each consisting of one or more numbers) to the printer,

and the printer interprets them.

Some codes tell the printer to print a character, and other codes tell

it to turn on or off certain printer functions, such as emphasized or

Near Letter Quality. Because the codes between 0 and

127

are basi-

cally standardized by the American Standard Code for Information

Interchange (ASCII) they are referred to as ASCII numbers in this

manual.

Nearly all of the codes for printer functions require more than one

number and begin with a special code, called the escape code. This

code signals that the next number is a code for a printer function and

its name is usually printed with the first three letters capitalized

(Escape) or it is abbreviated ESC or (ESC) .

In the demonstration programs in this manual, you’ll see how

ASCII and ESCape codes are used in the Microsoft BASIC program-

ming language.

The CHR$ (character string) function is used for numerical codes.

CHR$(27) is the ESCape code.

Quotation marks are used for printable characters, such as letters of

the alphabet.

LPRINT sends text or commands to the printer.

Your word processing or business program may use other methods

to send those codes, such as pressing the

key for the ESCape code.

See your software manual for further information and use Appen-

dixes B and C of this manual to find the proper codes. Appendix E also

has some suggestions on using LX-90 features with applications soft-

ware.