Instruction/ maintenance manual of the product NP-IO Star Micronics
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NP-IO USER’S MANUAL NOT INTENDED FOR SALE [ PN 80820191].
Federal Communications Commission Radio Fre s uency Interference tatement This equipment generates and uses radio frequency energy and if not installed and used properly, that is, in strict accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions, may cause in- terference to radio and television reception.
Table of Contents Chapter 1 Setting Up Your Printer 1 Locating the printer Check the carton contents Removing the printer cover Removing the packing tube Installing the ribbon cartridge Chapter 2 Gett.
Chapter 4 Formatting Text 37 Lines and line spacing Starting a new line Reverse line feeds Changing the line spacing Moving down the page without a carriage re- turn Page control Form feed Reverse for.
Chapter 7 Caring for Your Printer 95 Cleaning the printer Replacing the ribbon Replacing the print head Appendix A DIP Switch Settings 101 Switch functions Chapter 6 Download Characters and Dot Graphi.
--- Appendix F Technical Specifications 165 Appendix G The Parallel Interface 169 Functions of the Connector Signals Index 173.
CHAPTER I SETTING UP YOUR PRINTER Subjects covered in Chapter 1 include- . Choosing a suitable place for your printer l Unpacking l Setting up LOCATING THE PRINTER Give some thought to the best place to put the printer. Both the printer and computer should be used in normal home sur- roundings.
.._ . _. - igure l- 1. Check to make sure you have all tour items: 1) Printer, 2) Paper separator, 3) Ribbon cartridge, and 4) User’s manual. n Removing the printer cover The printer’s cover is im.
3 Figure 1-2. Remove the printer cover by lifting carefully. W Removing the packing tube Figure 1-3. Remove the protective tube from the carriage rail.
4 The printer is shipped with a protective spiral tube to keep the print head from being damaged during shipping. This tube must be removed before use. First, take off the printer cover. The protective tube is split along its bottom side to allow easy removal.
Print T. _- - _ __ .__ _._ _ ‘.igure l-5. .l’o thread the ribbon, slide the print head carriage manually to the right or left, and the ribbon will slip down by itself into its proper position.
6 MEMO - -.
CHAPTER 2 GETTING TO KNOW YOUR PRINTER Subjects covered in Chapter 2 include- * Parts of the printer - what they’re for and how to use them l Paper selection and loading l Adjustment l Testing print.
8 I Power cord . . . Figure 2- 1. Front and rear views of the prmter. H Controls and indicators Now let’s go over the controls and indicators of the printer, starting with the control panel on the right. There are three in- dicators and three keys on the control panel.
9 I Figure 2-2. The control panel. I POWER INDICATOR - Glows orange when the power is on. This indicator flickers when the printer runs out of paper and when certain printer malfunctions occur. NLQ KEY and INDICATOR - Changes the character style (draft or NLQ) when the On Line indicator is off, and glows green when the NLQ mode is selected.
We’ll explain about the “Panel” mode, which is powerful func- tion of the printer. Some commercial software does not support defining your own selections. In this case, use the “Panel” mode. Selection of the Panel Mode at power-on ensures that your choices remain in effect until you turn the power off.
i E NLQ key - Reverse micro-feed 3. When you can set the print start position, release the Paper Feed key or the NLQ key first, then release the On Line key.
12 - .wo 3 - The top setting is used when you want to load paper in the printer. P - The second setting is for normal single sheets. C - The third is for sprocket-feed paper. 4lU - The bottom one is used when you want to release the paper completely to adjust it.
13 -.2 Figure 2-6. Move the sprockets on the tracktor feed unit all the way to the ends. 2. Install the printer cover on the printer. 3. Set the release lever for single sheets - the second posi- tion from the top. 4. Insert a sheet of paper to the paper chute on the printer cover.
14 Release lever F the release lever. ‘igure 2-7. You can insert a sheet of paper automatically by using 1. Remove the printer cover. 2. Place a stack of fan-fold paper behind the printer. 3. Turn on the printer and set the release lever for sprocket-feed paper.
Figure 2-8. Open the sprocket covers to expose the sprocket teeth. 8. Check that the paper is still positioned correctly, and close the sprocket covers. 9. Set the release lever to the auto-feed setting. The printer will advance the paper automatically.
16 ADJUSTING THE PRINT HEAD The distance between the print head and the platen must be adjusted to accommodate papers of different thicknesses. To make this adjustment, move the adjustment lever, which is under the printer cover and immediately in front of the release lever (Figure 2-10).
version, and self-test 2 is the short one. You can use either one to show the characters available in the printer, to check the in- stallation of the ribbon and paper, and to check the adjustment of the head-to-platen gap. You can print the self-test without hooking up the printer to your computer.
CONNECTING THE PRINTER Now that you’ve assembled and tested your printer, all that re- mains is to connect it to your computer as follows: Interface ( Interface cable Figure 2-12. Connect the cable like this. 1. Make sure that both your computer and printer are turned off.
CHAPTER 3 PRINTING WITH BASIC Subjects covered in Chapter 3 include- . Listing BASIC programs on the printer l How a program prints things l Control codes, escape codes, and command syn- tax l Near le.
20 SOME BASICS OF BASIC n First steps The first things that a beginner learns to do are to list a pro- gram and to print a character string. Certainly these are the easiest operations one can do, but even they may depend on what computer you have. In Microsoft BASIC, we can list all the steps in a program by entering LIST.
n ASCII codes and the CHR$ function You can talk to your computer in BASIC, but your computer and your printer talk to each other in what are known as ASCII codes. In the ASCII code, each number from 0 to 255 has a par- ticular meaning - 36, for example, makes the printer print a dollar sign.
22 - the “control” key and one other. The other key determines what code is sent - pressing the control (CTRL) key and A sends ASCII code 1, CTRL B sends ASCII code 2, and so on. Your printer has a lot of control codes to let you do some useful things.
23 n The escape codes Back when the ASCII system was set up, computer equip- ment was relatively simple and thirty-three control codes were considered sufficient at the time.
24 So for our example above, any of these BASIC statements will have the same result: LPRINT CHR$(27);CHR$(87);CHR$(l) LPRINT CHR$(27>;CHR$(87);CHR$(49) LPRINT CHRS(27) ;"W";CHR$(l) LPRIN.
25 In this program, line 20 selects NLQ characters with (ESC) “x” 1 command. Line 30 prints a sample before line 40 switches printer back to draft printing with an (ESC) “x” 0. When you run the program you should get this: Now turn off the power switch.
Table 3-2 Italic commands Function Control code Italic ON (ESC) “4” Italic OFF (ESC) “5” Use this program to see italic characters: 10 ’ Demo of italic and roman 20 LPRINT CHR$(27);"4"; 30 LPRINT “This line is in ITALIC characters.
37 It should come out like this: In this program underline is turned on in line 20 with (ESC) “ - ” 1, and then off in line 40 with (ESC) “ -” 0. There’s a new aspect to this program, though. The semicolons at the end of the first three lines told BASIC that those lines were to be con- tinued.
I 28 90 LPRINT CHR$(27);"T"; 100 LPRINT "on one line." Here line 30 turns on superscripts with (ESC) “S” 0. It’s turned off in line 50 with (ESC) “T”. Then between printing text, subscripts are turned on in line 70 with (ESC) “S” 1, and finally off in line 90.
When you run this program you should get this: This line is ELITE pitch. "I'h:j.5 I. ii-162 is F':CCA pitch inormal ) . Line 20 turns on elite pitch with (ESC) “M”. Line 30 prints the line at 12 characters per inch. The (ESC) “P” in line 40 resets the printer to pica pitch and line 50 prints the line in pica pitch.
30 Sometimes you may wish to stay in expanded print for more than one line. Change your program to this: 10 ' Demo of permanent expanded mode 20 LPRINT CHR$(27);"Wl"; 30 LPRINT "Pe.
c. 31 D (<<$ IT) (1;) 1-1 5; .k, r <>, ‘b, i [::j r) CL) $ CONDENSED pr- i nt: 1 ng . Condensed print set with CHR$(lS) stays on until you turn it off with CHR$(18). Note that you don’t need to put an (ESC) in front of the CHR$(15), although (ESC) CHR$(15) works just the same.
32 220 LPRINT "This is EXPANDED PICA." 230 LPRINT CHR$(27);"WO" 240 END Here’s what you should get from this program: This line is CONDENSED ELITE pitch.
40 LPRINT CHR$(27);"pl"; 50 LPRINT "This line is PROPORTIONAL ELITE." 60 LPRINT CHR$(27);"P"; 70 LPRINT "This line is PROPORTIONAL PICA." 80 LPRINT CHR$(27);"pO"; 90 LPRINT "This line is NORMAL PICA printing.
34 Table 3-9 Print emphasis commands Function Control code Boldface ON (ESC) “G” Boldface OFF (ESC) “H” Emphasized ON (ESC) “E” Emphasized OFF (ESC) “F” Try them now with this little program: 10 ' Demo of boldface and emphasized 20 LPRINT CHR$(27);"G"; 30 LPRINT "This line is BOLDFACE printing.
35 MIXING PRINT MODES We have learned how to use the various print modes in- dividually and together. Now we’ll see how to combine them more efficiently. You have at your disposal a unique command that lets you choose any valid combination of print modes and pitch.
36 The command would look like this: CHR$(27);“!“;CHR$(49) To better understand the way the print modes work, consider that each mode except pica (pica is the default) has a separate switch that can turned on and off via software. Once the switch is on, it stays on until turned off.
CHAPTER 4 FORMATTING TEXT Subjects covered in Chapter 4 include- * The carriage return and line feed l The amount of space between lines l Moving to the next page l The number of lines on a printed pa.
- return. Each time the printer receives a CHR$(13) it returns the print head to the left margin. It does not advance the paper (if DIP switch l-3 is on; see below). Line feed is more complicated. Each time the printer receives a CHR$(lO) it both advances the paper one line and returns the print head to the left margin, ready to start a new line.
H Changing the line spacing When you turn your printer on, the line spacing is set to 6 lines per inch. This is fine for most printing applications, but when you want something different, the printer makes it easy to set the line spacing to whatever you want.
40 Line 40 changes the line spacing. The command (ESC) “A” CHR$(n) changes the line spacing to n/72 of an inch. The loop that is started in line 20 increases the value of n (the variable I in this program) each time it is executed. So the line spacing in- creases as the program continues.
The program works just the same as before, but the line spac- ings are just one-third what they were. This is because (ESC) “3” CHR$(n) sets the line spacing to n/216 inch. Table 4-2 shows all the line spacing commands, including several “shortcut” commands for commonly used line spacings.
30 LPRINT "LINE NUMBER 2."; 40 ' One-time line feed 50 LPRINT CHR$(27);"J";CHR$(lOO); 60 LPRINT "LINE NUMBER 3." 70 LPRINT "LINE NUMBER 4.
43 PAGE CONTROL Now that we have seen how to control line spacing, we can go on to page control - positioning the printing on the page and ad- justing the paper length. H Form feed The simplest forms control code is the form feed. Form feed (or (FF)) is CHR$(l%) and causes the printer to move the paper to the top of the next sheet.
n Reverse form feed Just your printer perform a line feed, can do reverse form This code the paper that the head is at the of the page. This be used, example, to text in multi-column magazine mat; pri.
45 This program should print “PAY TO THE ORDER OF:” twice, and they should be 7 inches apart. Line 20 sets the form length to 7 inches. After line 30 prints, line 40 sends a form feed advance the paper to the top of the next form. Line 50 then prints its message.
46 the printer how many blank lines should be left at the bottom of the page. Let’s try a simple application to see how these margins work. Enter this program, which will print 150 lines without top and bottom margins.
47 ” _-. 0 0 0 0 0 - :. I ___---- ---------- T7 0 0 0 0 --- 0 0 0 0 0 4 4.
48 SETTING LEFT AND RIGHT MARGINS The left and right margins of this printer work just like a typewriter - once they are set all printing is done between them.
49 When you want to reset the margins to the default values, you have two choices. You can either turn the printer off and back on, or you can set margin values equal to the default values. This means that you should set a left margin of 0 and right margin of 80 in pica pitch.
50 Even though the words are different length, they are spaced out evenly by the horizontal tabs. Now add the following line to your program to set different horizontal tabs: 15 LPRINT CHR$(27>;"D";CHR$(7);CHRS(14);CHRS(21); (0) (ESC) is the to begin horizontal tabs.
51 W One-time horizontal tabs Suppose you need to move to a position across the page, but you only need to do it once. It doesn’t make much sense to set up a tab to use only one time. There is an easier way. The solution is called a one-time tab. Table 4-8 shows the three commands.
The relative horizontal tab command can move the print head right from the current position with NLQ characters. The for- mula for calculating how much the print head moves is the same as in the absolute horizontal tab command. Try this program to see how this works.
I L 53 .._ up tabs, the command advances the paper only one line. Enter this program to see how this works. 10 ' Demo of vertical tabs 40 LPRINT CHR$(ll);"FIRST TAB." 50 LPRINT CHR$(ll);"SECOND TAB." 60 LPRINT CHR$(ll);"THIRD TAB.
54 in ascending order. Our example sets vertical tabs at lines 10, 15,25 and 30. Then the CHR$(ll) in each of the following lines advances the paper to the next vertical tab. Add one more line to the program to demonstrate one more feature of vertical tabs.
55 Table 4-9 Vertical tab commands Function Control code Advance paper to next tab position CHR$(ll) Set vertical tabs at nl, n2, etc. (ESC) “B” CHR$(nl) CHR@zZ) .
56 20 LPRINT CHR$(27);"b";CHR$(l);CHR$(lO);CHR$(20); ems (0) ; 30 LPRINT CHR$(27);"b";CHR$(2);CHR$(15);CHR$(25); CHR$ (0) ; 40 LPRINT CHR$(27);"b";CHR$(3);CHR$(17);CHR$(2.
57 In this program we set tabs at 10 and 20 in channel 1 in line 20. In line 30 we set tabs 15 and 25 in channel 2, and in line 40 we set tabs 17 and 28 in channel 3. Because the channels are stored, you must make the printer to recall one before you use it, so we used (ESC) “/” CHR$(nU) in line 80.
MEMO.
CHAPTER 5 SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE PRINTER Subjects covered in Chapter 5 include- . Printer’s bell l Master reset l Uni-directional printing l International character sets l Printing BIG characters l The optional sheet feeder l Macro instruction l Reading a hex dump In the previous chapters we have learned about several groups of control codes.
60 The code to sound the “bell” is CHR$(7), which is ASCII code 7 or (BEL). Any time your printer receives this code it will sound the bell for a quarter of a second. This can be used to re- mind the operator to change the paper or to make other ad- justments to the printer.
61 ning out of continuous paper. Your printer has the ability to print right to the bottom of the sheet. You can disable the paper-out detector so that it doesn’t stop the printer. This will allow you to print to the end of the sheet, and even beyond if you are not careful.
10 LPRINT "BACKSPACE DOES NOT"; 20 LPRINT CHR$(8);CHR$(8);CHR$@); 30 LPRINT 'I=== WORK." 40 LPRINT "DELETE DOES NOT"; 50 LPRINT CHR$(127>;CHR$(127);CHR$(l27); 60 LPRINT "WORK." 70 LPRINT "CANCEL LINE"; 80 LPRINT CHR$(24); 90 LPRINT "DOES NOT WORK.
63 But it will also print more slowly at the speed of your typing. In the immediate-print mode, the print head prints one character at a time, as you send it. The printer also moves the paper up so that you can see the current line and then down to continue print- ing.
64 30 FOR I=10 TO 1 STEP -2 40 LPRINT CHRS(27);" ";CHR$(I); 50 LPRINT "This line is added";I;"spaces." 60 NEXT I 70 LPRINT CHRS(27);" ";CHR$(O); 80 LPRINT "This line is Normal space." 90 END This line is added 10 spaces.
65 30 FOR I=1 TO 10 40 LPRINT "I" 50 NEXT I 60 LPRINT : LPRINT 70 LPRINT CHR$(27);"Ul"; 80 FOR I=1 TO 10 90 LPRINT "I" 100 NEXT I 110 LPRINT CHR$(12);CHR$(27);"@" Here is what you will get. The top line is printed bi-directional- ly, and the bottom is printed uni-directionally.
I 66 H The seven bit dilemma Some computers (not the IBM-PC fortunately!) don’t have the capability to send eight bits on their parallel interface, but can only send seven bits. This would make it impossible for these computers to use this printer’s block graphics characters and special symbols if our engineers hadn’t thought of a solution.
67 L L L. L L 10 LPRINT CHR$(27);"0"; 20 LPRINT CHR$(27);"6"; 30 FOR J=3 TO 6 40 LPRINT w ";J;CHR$(J);CHR$(g); 50 NEXT J 60 LPRINT ' 20 ";CHR$(20) 70 LPRINT 80 LPRIN.
.
69 So how are all of these strange characters used? Here is a short program that demonstrate how the graphics characters can be combined to create a figure: the 5 of clubs. 10 LPRINT CHR$(27);"6"; 20 LPRINT CHR$(218);CHR$(196);CHR$(l96); CHR$(196>;CHR$(196);CHRs(196);CHR$(191) 30 LPRINT CHR$(l79);CHR$(53);CH.
70 W International character sets Your printer changes languages by changing 12 characters that are different in the different languages. These sets of characters are called international character sets - and there are 11 sets in all. The control codes to select the international character sets are given in Table 5-4.
L 71 n Printing characters in the control code area When you refer the Appendix C, you’ll find many characters are printed in the control code area. (Remember that the low- order control codes are the ASCII codes 0 through 31 plus 127, and the high-order control codes are 128 through 159 plus 255.
72 40 LPRINT CHR$(I); 50 NEXT I 60 LPRINT c~~$(16);CHR$(l7); 70 FOR I=21 TO 31 80 LPRINT CHR$(I); 90 NEXT I 100 LPRINT 110 FOR I=128 TO 134 120 LPRINT CHR$(I); 130 NEXT I 140 LPRINT CHR$(144);CHR$(l45.
! 73 Table 5-7 Big character commands Function Control code Double-high enlarged print (ESC) “h” CHR$(l) Quad-high enlarged print (ESC) “h” CHR$(2) Double-high lower-half enlarged nrint ( ESC > “h,, CHR$.
74 As you can see, when the big character command is used, the baseline for each character does not align. If you want to align the baseline, try this program: 10 ’ Demo of aligning BIG characters 2.
75 Here is how the printer’s macro works. You define a macro by telling the printer what normal control codes are to be included in the macro. Then you can use the macro any time that you want and the printer will do all the things that you included in the macro definition.
76 Now that you have defined a macro, let’s see how to use it. This program will print one line using several printing features. Then it “calls” the macro in line 60. When line 80 prints the style is “plain vanilla” because the macro has reset it.
77 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..“........... ’ “HOAX.“, (, Ii , . / 0 1 ,( :‘l!r/,/ll’r’: : I-’ ~~III.I)I I I,I~I~II L 1-t40 t’I1IitiIII’JWX’~‘/l I atll-dc?l ClhI I& I”,,,0 ~Ir(I’St.LIVW::yI : I : ‘I. . . . .
78 MEMO.
CHAPTER 6 DOWNLOAD CHARACTERS AND DOT GRAPHICS L L.. L- L. L Subjects covered in Chapter 6 include- . Designing and printing your own characters l User-designed graphics Using the procedures outlined so far, all of the printer’s standard functions can be utilized.
80 fired by a different number. One byte of data (a decimal number from 0 to 255) can thus represent a unique combination of dots. For example, if the data representing “1” was sent to the print h.
c. i i L c L L i Ii.. 81 six boxes ,wide by nine boxes high. l Horizontally, dots may be centered in a box, or may straddle a line, making the actual character grid 11 dots wide by 9 dots high. Vertically, dots can only be centered in a box. See Figure 6-2.
82 value is 2. In the next column, there is a dot straddling the ver- tical line in the “1” box, and another in the “4” box; its value is recorded as 5. , m. m, m, m. m, m, m, m. m, m. m., 128 ASCII Code 64 Descender 32 Start column End column 16 M, = Descender l 126 + (Slarl l 16) + End Total Figure 6-3.
83 You will see the letters ml, m2, m3 etc., are above your values. When you define the character, you will substitute your value for each of these letters. Before you complete the definition, you will need to decide ex- actly where in the standard ASCII set you want to place your characters.
84 the grid; ml the left-most column value, m2 the next, and so on. You must define eleven data, even if the last few data are 0. For the flask, the complete command will be: CHR$(27);CHR$(38);CHR$(O).
L. L L L i i ‘. i c. c 85 l Tell printer to use download character set : (ESC > “%” 1 To demonstrate how to use the download characters, let’s use the “flask” character and some other user-defined characters to print a small graph.
1 86 320 LPRINT 330 LPRINT CHR$(9);+-"; 340 SCALE$="--+--'I 350 FOR I=2 TO 8 STEP 2 360 LPRINT SCALES; 370 NEXT I 380 LPRINT I'--+" 390 LPRINT CHR$(9);" 'I; 400 FOR I=2 TO 8 STEP 2 410 LPRINT " ";I; 420 NEXT I 430 LPRINT CHR$(27);"%0".
DESIGNING YOUR OWN NLQ CHARACTERS As you have probably noticed, NLQ characters are printed by two passes of the print head. Half of the character is printed on the first pass, and the remainder on the second pass.
88 your characters, and the second pass dots on the lines. Remeber that adjacent dots may not overlap on the same pass; in other words, if one dot is in a box, its adjacent dot on the same pass may not be on a line.
89 10 LPRINT CHR$(27);"xl"; 20 LPRINT CHR$(27);":" ;CHR$(O);CHR$(O);CHR$(O); 30 LPRINT CHR$(27);"&";CHR$(O);CHR$(60);CHR$(62); 40 FOR N=60 TO 62 50 FOR M=O TO 22 60 R.
90 370 LPRINT CHR$(9);"i--'I; 380 SCALE$="--+-'I 390 FOR I=2 TO 8 STEP 2 400 LPRINT SCALES; 410 NEXT I 420 LPRINT "--+" 430 LPRINT CHRS(9);" "; 440 FOR I=2 TO 8.
(ESC) “*” specifies the graphics mode, the CHR$(O) specifies normal density. Other densities are described later. Any number of graphics data may follow; the nl and n2 specify the number of bytes. To figure the value of nl and n2, you need to work out how wide your image will be.
HIGHER RESOLUTION GRAPHICS There are seven graphics modes you can use; they are sum- marized in Table 6-2. Table 6-2 Function Control code Normal density (60 dots/inch) (ESC)“*“CHR$(O) nl n2 ml m2 . . . Double densitv (120 dots/inch) (ESC)“*“CHR$(l) nl vL?ml m2 .
MORE GRAPHICS PROGRAMMING TIPS At the end of this chapter, we’ll discuss two modes that the printer offers to help you solve potential graphics problems. A redefining code allows you to change the density for graphics programs that use one of the four alternate codes.
94 peripheral devices using eight data lines. When the peripheral is a printer, each data line corresponds to one pin on the print head. Thus each byte sent will fire up to eight pins.
An important point after buying a device Star Micronics NP-IO (or even before the purchase) is to read its user manual. We should do this for several simple reasons:
If you have not bought Star Micronics NP-IO yet, this is a good time to familiarize yourself with the basic data on the product. First of all view first pages of the manual, you can find above. You should find there the most important technical data Star Micronics NP-IO - thus you can check whether the hardware meets your expectations. When delving into next pages of the user manual, Star Micronics NP-IO you will learn all the available features of the product, as well as information on its operation. The information that you get Star Micronics NP-IO will certainly help you make a decision on the purchase.
If you already are a holder of Star Micronics NP-IO, but have not read the manual yet, you should do it for the reasons described above. You will learn then if you properly used the available features, and whether you have not made any mistakes, which can shorten the lifetime Star Micronics NP-IO.
However, one of the most important roles played by the user manual is to help in solving problems with Star Micronics NP-IO. Almost always you will find there Troubleshooting, which are the most frequently occurring failures and malfunctions of the device Star Micronics NP-IO along with tips on how to solve them. Even if you fail to solve the problem, the manual will show you a further procedure – contact to the customer service center or the nearest service center
