SCREEN FONTS, ETC.

[ROBERT HEMENWAY]

Dear Sysop, Thanks very much for your clarifications in msg. #6362. I have a
couple of monochrome monitors, though, and on both of them--one with a Herc
Graphics card and one that's double-scan CGA--I get the 437 code page screen
font when the native page is 830. No bracketed characters, as there are if the
native page is 437, but it's the standard IBM ASCII 255, with the three sets of
line-drawing characters and the Greek letters.

At the outset of its section on using code pages, the MS-DOS 5.0 manual has
this: "NOTE: Monochrome and CGA monitors and many printers cannot use prepared
code pages. See the documentation for your hardware device to determine whether
prepared code pages are supported."

With the Herc graphics card I can write a screen font, which is what I've done.
So for me, with one of the monitors, it's not a problem. With the old 17-inch
CGA it is. I *use* the characters in the upper range, including those above
ASCII 165. With one of the clone cards or a CGA, so far as I can see, all it's
possible to have is the hardware screen font. And that's the 437.

There's no difficulty with the printer output with the LaserJet, but screen
font and printer font won't correspond, in the upper range, in draft or
page-line mode.

This affects only a small minority that's growing smaller as color monitors
become the standard, but it's a limitation. Try it out one day on a monochrome
monitor.

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The macro to insert the new typeface triangle for inserts is too much for me,
but someone will write it. Easier for me to go to an oldstyle driver to print
out redline text with bold face in a distinctive typeface for insertions.

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No landscape fonts from Speedo on the LaserJet II means that you can't match
the type on an envelope address with the type in a letter unless you use
Courier. This, too, is no prob with the oldstyle driver, which works with both
portrait and landscape downloaded soft fonts and switches between them
depending on which PCL code is sent to the printer with a PC/PB command. In the
old days, I could use Bitstream Charter as the portrait body face in a letter
and print out the address in landscape, and had a macro that does it in a
flash.

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Another limitation. The space between lines could be controlled in the oldstyle
drivers, font by font, by changing the VL setting in the font definitions. Line
spacing can supposedly be changed globally for the LaserJets by changing the
setting in the PM line in the printer file, to which there's access through the
menu in the Printer Memory panel.

But that doesn't work, at least not for me. Changes in the setting have no
effect. The default value of 120% is what it remains, no matter what the
setting, whether it's at 130% or 200%. The default is equivalent to 10/12,
which is acceptable, of course, but I usually like a little more, 130%. Is this
a quirk in my setup or a bug?

I don't think any less of Speedo or of Sig for all this. Things had to be given
up to get Speedo's speed and smoothness. I harp on the stuff because I'd like
to convince you to give a full explanation of how to use bitmap fonts and
drivers in the Tech Ref manual due in April. Regards and thanks, rh.