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Loadstar 140
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140.d81
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r8Ch!¨P~-bŠ@Lˆœ‰.prg
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2021-04-19
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uld].
Everyone has an opinion. I
really don't like the color setting
that LOADSTAR has used for the past
15 or so issues. In order to make
the highlight work best for you, you
might want to change the colors so
that the highlights have more
contrast. My favorite settings are
black background, cyan text and
yellow highlights. You can get this
by pressing [SPACE] until the
background turns black. [SPACE]
cycles through preset color
combinations. You can fine tune by
pressing [C] for text color and [B]
for background color. Then, if you
quit LOADSTAR by pressing Q, the
settings you chose are saved to disk
for your next session.
[PRINTING]
[--------]
My stomach is already churning.
LOADSTAR, after 140 issues, is
finally sending escape codes from its
presenter. The triple column print
gave us enough headaches before when
MPS-801 users and users of older
printers with limited features
clamored to make use of it. Then
they clamored to call tech support
when their printers failed. Now we
have upped the ante. The presenter
and text printer can print in:
[65-column]
[Twin column]
[Triple column]
Each with:
[No highlights]
[Emphasized highlights]
[Reverse highlights]
[Underlined highlights]
[Double Strike highlights]
[Italicized Highlights]
As far as I know, MPS-801/803
users can only use reverse highlights
-- which I might add is pretty ugly
even on my Panasonic 24-pin printer.
Nevertheless, if reverse is the only
highlight your printer can do, it's
there.
If you choose no emphasis,
you'll notice that previously
emphasized words suddenly have
[brackets] around them. I wish I
could actually [show] you a bracket,
but I can't. That's the cost of
introducing highlighted text. We had
to pick characters that turned the
highlight on and off but still looked
decent if revealed by a printout.
[TEXT PRINTER]
[------------]
Text Printer is written in 100%
machine language now. Why did we do
that you might ask? Well, the old
text printer had its limits with
larger files because I don't have the
source code to the old printout
algorithm. So I cannibalized the
presenter's print routines, wrote a
new file requestor, and kabam! A new
text printer!
Originally I tried to make the
new text printer run [internally]
from the presenter (in its font
area). This would have facilitated
instantaneous return to LOADSTAR and
a much smaller text printer. I was
excited about it, but alas, it was
too big a job in too little time.
Bugs abounded. The final text
printer took only a day or two to do
after abandoning the internal text
printer fiasco.
I hope the new presenter is well
received -- even by MPS-801 users.