daisy <file> Terminal=type [Crt=type] [Density=n]
[Graphics=file] [pageSkip=n] [+Pause]
Note that a Multiwriter III terminal accepts Xerox 1620 type commands.
DAISY is a program for printing formatted output on a daisy wheel type device. Normally it will be used for printing TF output. Although it is possible to let TF print its output on the terminal directly, there are several advantages to TFing into a file and then printing the output with DAISY. DAISY optimizes multiple spaces and blank lines, and so makes much better use of a 300 baud line. This makes the printing proceed noticeably faster. (The faster print rate seems to reduce the number of times that carbon ribbons jam.)
Often when printing a file a page a time, errors will occur. Carbon ribbons jam, the paper catches or goes in crooked, or a character gets garbled by line noise and garbage gets printed. When DAISY is in "+Pause" mode, at the end of each page it will accept the command "Redo" or "Again" as an indication that it should retype the page it just typed because something went wrong. If you notice an error at the start of a page, you can hit break to finish the current attempt to print the page and then type "Redo" (or simply "R"). (On a Xerox 1620 or Multiwriter III you must also reset the top of page.) At these pauses DAISY will also accept the commands "Quit", "Done", "Stop" or "End" to signal that DAISY should give up.
Finally, if you stop printing a file half way through and want to restart part way through, it takes less time to skip through the file with DAISY than it does to reTF those pages.
DAISY allows you to define a file of special characters. Whenever it finds a character with a value outside the normal ASCII set (i.e. a value greater than octal 177) it checks a table defined by the graphics file to see if there is an action specified for this value. Normally this will be used to construct special graphics by overstriking regular characters. However, it is possible to define actions such as forward and reverse half line feeds for superscripts and subscripts.
Each line of the file is of the form
ooo aaaaaaaaaaa
where "ooo" is a sequence of three octal digits defining the input character. Each "a" is an action to be taken by the printer. An "a" can be one of the motion characters 'u', 'd', 'l' or 'r', which indicate that the carriage print head should move up, down, left or right respectively. Horizontal movement is in units of 1/60'th of an inch, vertical motion in units of 1/48'th. The other action character is 'o' which indicates that the next action character is a regular character to be printed. For example,
257 o:do-u
could be used to define a reasonable division symbol for a Courier 10 print wheel. It specifies that whenever the program finds a byte with a value of octal 257 it should construct a character by typing a ":", moving down 1/48 inch, printing a "-", and then moving the printing head back up 1/48 inch.
Note that in defining a character, one normally will position the typewheel back where it started, i.e. put in an equal number of up and down, or left and right motions. When the character has been printed, DAISY will output a space so that the total motion will be one character position, which corresponds to the calculation that TF will have made about the width of the character (one character position). It is not absolutely required that a character be so defined, but in order to make TF's width calculations work out, you should ensure that the total of special motions within a line balance. For example, if you define and use a reverse half line feed in order to output a superscript expression, you should use a half line feed character within the same line.
Copyright © 1996, Thinkage Ltd.