<REFERENCE>PRIME>DRB>SPOOLFORMAT
This information on the behavior of the despooler was drawn from the SPOOL sources, and some old print files using these codes. It was collated by Dennis Boone, 2014-2019.
The despooler can do some page formatting: page headers including page numbers, line counting, fortran/cobol carriage control, etc. To control these features, one can embed control characters at the beginning of lines in the print file.
In the following descriptions, the notation ^c indicates a control character, ^a would be a control-a (SOH), etc.
| Despooler Control Sequences | |
|---|---|
| Code | Description |
| ^@^a | Old style header set |
| ^a | Introduces a control line. Alone, it clears header. Followed by a valid mode char (list below), it sets the cc mode. (mode value is the code point, so mode 5 would be ^d) Otherwise, it sets header. If the second character in header set line is ^^, it doesn't reset page number. |
| ^a^_ | Set lines per page (only affects spooler line counting, not printer) |
| ^c | EVFU skip line, second char gives channel number (mode 0 only) channel 1-16 for mpc, 1-12 for amlc |
| Carriage Control Modes | |
|---|---|
| Mode | Description |
| 0 | No formatting |
| 1 | FORTRAN Carriage Control |
| 2 | COBOL Carriage Control (first two columns, like FORTRAN) |
| 3 | Paginate (presumably prints heading and page number, since mode 4 doesn't) |
| 4 | Paginate (no heading or page number) |
| 5 | Plot mode (raw pass-through) |
| 6 | High-bit off mode |
| Notes | Mode 3 is the default. Setting mode 3 may not work. FORTRAN/COBOL modes understand only 1+0- cc characters. The spooler only checks for form feeds in columns 1, 3, 13 and 15. Form feeds in other columns may affect the printer (serial), but won't be properly detected and formatted by the despooler. |
Sources
- 19.4 spool>source>o$alnn.plp
- Old files using some of these
- PrintMaster notes