Concise Atari ST 68000 Programmer's Reference Guide

Printer and terminal escape codes

In general an Atari printer that is designed to work with the ST will provide the most suitable path to trouble free computer/printer interfacing and the production of hard copy printout and screen dumps. Where a printer of another manufacture is to be used, the following information may be of use:

If screen dumps are required, the code 13 4C (27 76 decimal) should be recognized as ‘double density bit image mode’ for printing 960 dots per line at 120 dots per inch on 8” wide paper (the dump is virtually the same size as the monitor screen display) or code 1B 59 (27 89 decimal) for the wider paper screen dumps.

It may reasonably be assumed that whatever word processor you employ, it will provide the necessary print configuration file to make available the printers facilities. Double clicking a non-executable file icon to print its contents should not cause problems as control codes are not sent within the text. The ST does however precede the file with the code to select draft or NLQ (near letter quality) print, i.e. ESC, "x", n.

Some serial printers are restricted to 2400 and 600 baud operation, the ST supports neither rate without recourse to ‘C’ or assembly language programming.


Typical Epson Printer Codes

Code ASCII
mnemonic
Function
Dec. Hex
       



VT52 Terminal Escape Codes

The folowing BIOS bconout() functions simulate a VT52 terminal, with extensions for colour, screen wrap, etc.

Escape Function Comments