ASA carriage control characters
Encyclopedia
ASA control characters are simple printing command characters used by mainframe
printers
to control the movement of paper through line printer
s. These commands are presented as special characters in the first column of each text line to be printed
, and affect how the paper is advanced before the line is printed.
"ASA" is the abbreviation of the American Standards Association, a former name for the American National Standards Institute
(ANSI), which is believed to have sanctioned these control characters.
Overstriking
can be used to make boldface text by printing the same line twice without advancing the paper. It can also be used to make underline
d text by printing a line of underscore
characters atop the text.
Mainframe printers have 12 channels (1 through 9 and A through C) that can be assigned a fixed position on the page, allowing the printer to skip a variable distance down the page to a fixed location. Normally only channel 1 is preassigned, to the top of the page.
ASA carriage control characters are still used for printer output from mainframe
applications and software today, and are not limited to seasoned software or applications dating from the days of the line printer. ASA carriage control characters are interpreted by other software before being printed on modern computer printer
s.
Example output containing ASA carriage control characters:
This is the first line on the page
This is the third line on the page
This is the 6th line on the page
This is the 7th line on the page
____ the - Overstrike the 7th line
Example as printed output:
This is the first line on the page
This is the third line on the page
This is the 6th line on the page
This is the 7th line on the page - Overstrike the 7th line
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
printers
Computer printer
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
to control the movement of paper through line printer
Line printer
The line printer is a form of high speed impact printer in which one line of type is printed at a time. They are mostly associated with the early days of computing, but the technology is still in use...
s. These commands are presented as special characters in the first column of each text line to be printed
Print job
In computing, a print job is a file or set of files that has been submitted to be printed.Jobs are typically identified by a unique number, and are assigned to a particular destination, usually a printer...
, and affect how the paper is advanced before the line is printed.
"ASA" is the abbreviation of the American Standards Association, a former name for the American National Standards Institute
American National Standards Institute
The American National Standards Institute is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organization also coordinates U.S. standards with international...
(ANSI), which is believed to have sanctioned these control characters.
Operation
| ASA Character | Action | ASCII ASCII The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text... Equivalent |
|---|---|---|
1 |
Advance to next page (form feed Page Break A page break is a marker in an electronic document that tells the document interpreter that the content which follows is part of a new page. A page break causes a form feed to be sent to the printer during spooling of the document to the printer.-Form feed:... ) |
CR |
| 2–9, A, B, C | Advance to vertical tab stop | CR VT (approximately) |
| blank | Advance 1 line (single spacing) | CR LF |
0 |
Advance 2 lines (double spacing) | CR LF LF |
- |
Advance 3 lines (triple spacing) | CR LF LF LF |
+ |
Do not advance any lines before printing, overstrike the previous line |
CR |
Overstriking
Overstrike
In typography, overstrike is a method of printing characters that are missing from the printer's character set. It was widely used around the early 1990s...
can be used to make boldface text by printing the same line twice without advancing the paper. It can also be used to make underline
Underline
An underline, also called an underscore, is one or more horizontal lines immediately below a portion of writing. Single, and occasionally double , underlining was originally used in hand-written or typewritten documents to emphasise text...
d text by printing a line of underscore
Underscore
The underscore [ _ ] is a character that originally appeared on the typewriter and was primarily used to underline words...
characters atop the text.
Mainframe printers have 12 channels (1 through 9 and A through C) that can be assigned a fixed position on the page, allowing the printer to skip a variable distance down the page to a fixed location. Normally only channel 1 is preassigned, to the top of the page.
ASA carriage control characters are still used for printer output from mainframe
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
applications and software today, and are not limited to seasoned software or applications dating from the days of the line printer. ASA carriage control characters are interpreted by other software before being printed on modern computer printer
Computer printer
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
s.
Example output containing ASA carriage control characters:
This is the first line on the page
This is the third line on the page
This is the 6th line on the page
This is the 7th line on the page
____ the - Overstrike the 7th line
Example as printed output:
This is the first line on the page
This is the third line on the page
This is the 6th line on the page
This is the 7th line on the page - Overstrike the 7th line
External links
- More elaborate description at Felgall Mainframe
- IBM Printing Reference for AIX compilers
- First-character forms-control data definition http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v7r1m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Frzalu%2Frzalufcfcd.htm