#Printer query
3 messages in this thread
Yikes! The hazards of being a "public domain software" author.
I got a call a few minutes ago from a woman in Tucson who had just
received a copy of MLRB, a mailing list program that I wrote five years
ago, from Caroline Mack. She got everything entered and ready to print,
and then found that the printing was too wide for the labels.
Part of the problem is that she had a very old version of MLRB, which
doesn't provide for different label widths, so I'm sending her a "newer"
(4-year-old) version.
But the other part of the problem is that she doesn't know how to adjust
the letter width on her printer, which she describes as a DEC Letterprinter
100. In fact, she wasn't sure if it was dot-matrix or daisy-wheel.
It apparently doesn't accept the LA50 command to use 12-pitch, because
that's built into MLRB.
Does anyone know if and how to instruct a Letterprinter 100 to print in
12-pitch?
Thanks,
— Carl
Carl,
A Letterprinter 100 is a/k/a an LA100. The sequence <ESC>[2w is
12-pitch, which I *think* is the same as the LA50. But the LA100 is
different from the LA50 in that it has interchangeable fonts (both in
cartridges and in chip form). The machine in question may, possibly, not
have a 12-pitch font installed. I think you can override that by sending
<ESC>[?29l (note, lower case L, not 1) which enables "all pitches" mode
instead of "current font pitches only" mode… you'd need to send that
before the 12-pitch sequence. I'm still not 100% certain it would work, and
what it might do is to print 10-pitch characters at 12-pitch,
whichwouldn'tbeveryreadable 😉
There is something she can do that will cause the printer to do a
self-test at power-up, which will list the installed fonts ("Dot Pattern
Sets" or DPSes in LA100 verbiage). Unfortunately I don't remember what it
is.
-Bill
Bill,
Thanks. I'll try enclosing a short program to reset "all pitches" mode
in case that helps. I'm also sending a definition file for one-across
labels, which should allow a work-around one way or the other.
— Carl