SB BBC @ GBR Oldie hints/tips #098-099 Hints and tips from the archives of Wakefield BBC Micro User Group... 98. Printing listings (2) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here is another handy little routine from Peter Osborn, using the Perforation Skipover facility in your printer. This leaves a few blank lines at the top and bottom of each fanfold sheet, thus avoiding listing lines being bisected by the perforations. It is shown as a string of VDU codes on KEY0, and the cancel code is on KEY1. I have assumed that the formlength has first been set to 11", (the norm), or 12", either on the printer dipswitches or by the Esc"C" command. The procedure is to set your paper up so that the print head is approximately N/2 lines from the top of a sheet, where N is the total number of blank lines to be skipped. (Ie if you want 3 blank lines at the top and bottom of the pages, then N=6.) Now switch your printer on, press , and then LIST your programs as normal, using and to switch the printer on and off. You can cancel the skipover with , to avoid odd things happening with, say, Wordwise, which can set its own top and bottom spaces. This routine apparently works on all Epson-compatible printers, and also on the Star Gemini 10-X. *KEY0 VDU2,1,27,1,78,1,N,3|M (Enable P-S) *KEY1 VDU2,1,27,1,79,3|M (Disable P-S) 99. GREEK CHARACTERS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Many printers do not have Greek characters available, and this can be a nuisance when printing physical, electrical or mathematical formulae. Peter Osborn and his colleague B.Frere sent in some useful Wordwise codes to print some of the Greek alphabet on printers using Epson commands. I've improved some of them a bit, and added a few more; you might find them handy now and again. If you have Wordwise Plus then you can replace the initial oc27,75 or oc27,76 with es"K" and es"L" respectively. The character is sent to the printer only in bit-image mode, and is not allowed for by any justification or tabbing routine; you'll see what I mean if you try it. Either avoid these situations, or else try playing about with pad characters in the text. You can also print the characters from Basic, by replacing the initial oc with VDU, and preceding each byte with a 1, eg VDU1,27,1,75,1, etc., which is rather tedious. You could 'cheat' by using *FX3,10 , but there are snags, so I suggest you avoid it. Incidentally, these codes confuse my machine-code Pound/# sign fix, so avoid using that too! Alpha oc27,75,6,0,28,34,34,28,34,0 Beta oc27,75,6,0,127,146,146,108,0,0 Gamma oc27,75,6,0,32,64,63,64,0,0 Delta oc27,75,6,0,108,82,82,12,0,0 Delta (cap) oc27,76,12,0,2,6,10,18,34,66,34,18,10,6,2,0,0 Epsilon oc27,75,6,0,28,42,42,34,0,0 Zeta oc27,75,6,0,184,68,69,67,0,0 Eta oc27,75,6,0,32,30,32,32,31,0 Theta oc27,75,6,0,124,146,146,124,0,0 Kappa oc27,75,6,0,62,8,20,34,0,0 Lambda oc27,75,6,0,2,4,72,60,2,0 Mu oc27,75,6,0,1,62,4,4,62,0 Xi oc27,75,6,0,84,42,43,35,0,0 Pi oc27,75,6,0,32,62,32,62,32,0 Rho oc27,75,6,0,62,73,72,48,0,0 Sigma oc27,75,6,0,24,36,255,36,24,0 Sigma (cap) oc27,75,6,0,130,198,170,146,198,0 Tau oc27,75,6,0,16,32,62,32,32,0 Phi oc27,75,6,0,28,34,34,60,32,0 Psi oc27,75,6,0,56,4,255,4,56,0 Omega oc27,75,6,0,28,34,12,34,28,0 Omega (cap) oc27,75,6,0,26,38,32,38,26,0 73 de G4BLT @ GB7WRG