PRISMSET

PRISMSET is a program which selects type fonts, tab locations, margins, ribbon
colors and other options on the Integral Data Systems PRISM 80 and PRISM 132
printers. It was written for the Office of International Aviation, Department
of Transportation for use with IBM compatible personal computers. Source code
for the program is in QuickBASIC.

The compiled form of the program -- PRISMSET.EXE -- is placed in the public
domain. The source code includes subprograms which are copyrighted and
licensed to the programmer: the source code may therefore not be released to
the public.


Installing PRISMSET

PRISMSET requires no special installation or environment. It may be kept on a
separate diskette which might be placed in drive A: then it could be called
from drive C by typing

A:PRISMSET

If you use a fixed disk, you may want to save PRISMSET.EXE in the directory
C:\DOS. Then, if you have this instruction in an AUTOEXEC.BAT in the C:\ root
directory:

PATH=C:\DOS

you can call PRISMSET.EXE from any directory by typing

PRISMSET

There are many possible variations on these two approaches. The important
thing is that PRISMSET.EXE is not a terminate-and-stay-resident (TSR) program.
Yet, the latter approach gives some of the advantages of TSR programs without
some of the disadvantages.


Using PRISMSET

When you call PRISMSET, it starts running showing its title page with the bar
menu across the top of the screen. The first menu window appears almost
immediately.

The bar menu at the top gives the titles of the five available window menus.
You may shift among the window menus by using the right-arrow and left-arrow
keys on the number pad. On some keyboards, these arrow keys are separate from
the number pad.

You may select the PRISMSET functions within the menu windows in two ways:

(1) Move the cursor up and down the window menu with the up-arrow and
down-arrow keys on the number pad. When the cursor is positioned
at your choice, depress the key to make your selection.
The cursor recycles by leaving the menu at the bottom and re-
entering at the top.

(2) Jump the cursor to your selection by typing the initial letter of
your selection. As before, confirm you choice by depressing the
key. If more than one choice has a given initial letter,
you may need to type the letter more than once. The cursor does
not recycle when you select this way.



Type fonts menu

The first window menu gives twelve choices of type style:

Pica correspondence quality Stretched correspondence quality
Pica draft quality Stretched draft quality
Elite correspondence quality Headline correspondence quality
Elite draft quality Headline draft quality
Compressed correspondence quality Bigprint correspondence quality
Compressed draft quality Bigprint draft quality

Each of these styles can be further modified by selecting the "Proportional
spacing on" option from the "Format" menu window.

The user would be well served by making a style example sheet with each of the
twenty four options on it, using the "Print test text" option from the "Miscel-
laneous" menu window.

There is a "Leave PRISMSET" option at the bottom of each menu window so you
don't need to go rabbit hunting every time you want to leave the program.


Color ribbon menu

The second window menu lets you select the color of the print if you have a
yellow-red-blue-black ribbon on the printer.

If you have a magenta-green-cyan-black ribbon on the printer, you have to
juggle this menu a little, but not much.


Black ribbon menu

This menu lets you select one of the four bands of a black ribbon. You may
want to use it to give even wear to the ribbon. However, ribbons seem usually
to dry out before they wear out.


Format menu

The fourth menu toggles proportional spacing and justification on and off.

With proportional spacing off, each character gets the same amount of space in
the line. With proportional spacing on, each character is allotted space in
proportion to its width, e.g., an "i" gets less linear room than an "m."

When justification is toggled on, lines of text line up evenly on the right
side.

This menu also sets tab stops (both horizontal and vertical), and has options
for setting the widths of the left and right margins.


Miscellaneous menu

There are three options in the fifth menu.

"Set graphics mode" toggles on the graphics mode. You may want this facility
if you are printing graphics (non-character) output. Most programs that make
graphics output do their own toggling. Don't select this option unless you are
going to use it: you need to re-boot the computer to turn it off.

"Print test text" prints the PRISM character set three times. The character
set contains no graphics characters.

"Form feed" advances the paper in the printer to the start of the next page.

David Cassidy
9355 Sibelius Drive
Vienna, VA 22180
703-281-3335