Laser Printer User Manual

Mostprogramminglanguages,andsomeversionsof BASIC,let youtreat

theprinteras a fileto whichyoucan senddata.Whenyouwritea program

withoneoftheselanguagesyou“open”theprinterfile,printintoit,andthen

“close”thefilewhenyou’redone.Thisprogrammingjargonsoundsfunny

if you’renotusedto it—butit works.

A fewprogramminglanguagesletyousendcommandstotheprinterathird

way. Applesoft BASIC is one. With it, you can switchbetweenprinter

outputand screenoutput.

1.2.8Printeremulations

You noticedthat we said “in FX-850mode”up there? Your Star Laser-

Printer4respondstothesameescapesequencecommandsthatseveraloiher

printemuse.Beingableto emulateprintersliketheEpsonFX-850letsyou

useyourStarLaserPrinter4witholderprogramsthathaven’tbeenupdated

to take advantageof laserprinters.In fact,becauseit emulatestwo of the

mostpopularprinters,youcanusetheStarLaserPrinter4withjustaboutany

microcomputerprogramaround.

Unfortunatelythose printers often use different escape sequences for

exactlythe same function.Thoseprinters,moreover,provideescapese-

quencesfor functionsthe Star LaserPrinter4 doesn’t need, such as the

Epson’s Half-SpeedCommand.When your printer gets a command it

doesn’tsupport,itjust ignoresthe command.

Macrosaresinglecontrolcodesyoucandefineyourself,whichdothework

ofawholelongseriesofprintercommands.Ifyouareaprogrammeryouwill

be happyto hearthe StarLaserPrinter4 supportsup to 99 macrosat once.