'\0' in nroff driver tables

[Wolf Paul]

In article <636 at shade.UUCP> steveb at shade.UUCP (Steve Barber) writes:
>
>It's nice to know that % can be used in nterm tables to set the 8th
>bit, but I haven't seen an answer to one of the other questions yet:
>is there any way to get an ASCII 0 ('\0') into an nterm printer driver
>table?  My LQ-850 wants them (\0 turns off modes, \1 turns them on, etc.)
>and when I put \0 in the tab.lq850 file, it acts as an end-of-string
>character.  This sounds like a fundamental bug to me - other than using
>the fx filter, has anyone found a way around it?  (I'd like to not use
>filters - the fewer processes the better...)


1. I recall seeing nroff term tables with '%' prefixed to '\0' or '\000'
   sequences recently, but was unable to look it up just now, so you may
   need to experiment with these two forms to see which one works.

2. However, in my experience, Epson printers (and compatibles) of both
   the FX and LQ variety will accept a digit '1' or '0' instead of '\001'
   and '\0', in these mode setting strings, i.e. "\033x1" works just
   as well as "\033x\001" to set letter quality mode, and "\033x0" to
   return to draft.

On a slightly different subject: The "nroffgraphics" posting from c.s.u.
also permits the use of special characters in graphics mode on Epson-FX
compatible printers, and should be easy enough to modify to support
other printers as well as use character downloading instead of graphics.

If anyone is still interested in my posting this to u-pc.sources while
I have it sitting in my home directory here on killer, please let me
know.

Wolf
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