Chapter 15
User-Defined Characters
If you’ve studied the program examples in this manual, you are
quite adept at printing both graphics and text with the FX. In this
chapter we’re going to share the secrets of the ultimate in printer con-
trol-defining your own characters.
With the FX, you can create any number of new characters,
graphics patterns to serve as building blocks for larger designs, or
even whole type fonts. You can use these characters for any purpose as
long as they fit into the same dot matrix as the ROM characters do-9
dots tall by 11 dots wide (6 main columns plus 5 intermediate col-
umns). Figure 15-1 shows a comparison of a few sample characters
and their ROM equivalents.
ROM
USER DEFINED
CHARACTERS CHARACTERS
LETTERS:
F,X
F,X
SYMBOLS:
,*
NUMBERS:
8,0
8,0
PLAY IT AGAIN, FX*80!
Figure
15-1.
ROM and user-defined characters
Once you define your own characters, you can use them over and
over, just as you use the FX’s ROM characters. The FX prints user-
defined characters the same way it does any other ASCII characters.
But before you can take advantage of this fantastic feature, you
must first make a little preparation.
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