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following test program lets you check to see what codes, if any, are
problems for your software. This program is in BASIC; use an equiv-
alent program for another programming language.
l0 FOR X=0 TO 255
20 LPRINT CHR$(X);
30
NEXT X
Put the printer in hex dump mode and then RUN the program.
Remember to press the ON LINE button to make the LQ print the final
line. Then compare your printout with the list of hex codes in order in
Appendix B. If any are skipped or repeated, you will know that your
computer system changes some codes before it sends them to the
printer.
For example, in the lines below, which are the first two lines of the
printout of the test program run with IBM PC BASIC release 2.0, you
can see that in this case BASIC adds hex 0A, which is the code for line
feed, after hex 0D, the code for a carriage return. You will also notice
that the program does not send hex 1A (decimal 26). Both of these
characteristics are discussed in the next section.
00
01
02 03
04
05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0A 0E
...............................................
0F 10
11
12 13
14
15 16
17
18
19
1B 1C
1D
1E 1F
................................................
The hex dumping capability can help you debug a program quickly.
Appendix B will help you translate the hex codes to ASCII equiva-
lents.
IBM PC BASIC Solutions
There are three problems in using the IBM Personal Computer
BASIC to drive a printer. First, the IBM PC BASIC inserts a carriage-
return/line feed (CR—LF) after each 80 characters you send it. Sec-
ond, it adds an LF to each CR in an LPRINT statement. Third, release
2.0 of PC BASIC will not send hex 1A (decimal 26).
Here is the way to adjust the width when it is the only problem. Tell
the computer that the print line is wider than 80 characters with this
WIDTH statement:
WIDTH "LPT1:",255
D-6