User Note No 11: ICL Print Program

R E Thomas

17 November 1975

The ICL Print Programs available on the FR80 accept tapes in COPYOUT f0rmat. These can come from two major Sources:

1. The user may have copied files to his own tape and used the FICHETAPE macro to tell the FR80 operators (see Appendix 1).
2. The user may have assigned a lineprinter LISTFILE to fiche. These files are de-spooled by the operators, providing a tape containing files from different users (see 1906A User Note 59).

Each file will have the standard ICL lineprinter banner at the top.

The Print Programs have been set up to treat this latter form as the standard. A title has been built into the program which will p~int the username and filename on the first fiche of each file. Subsequent fiche will have meaningless titles (this is an unfortunate side-effect, which it is hoped to cure later). All PFCC's are treated as 'throw 1 line and print', except for the following:

#42   throw 2 lines and print
#51   throw to new page and print
#11   throw to new page and do not print 
#40   do not throw to new line, but overprint 

User-owned COPYOUT tapes may make use of the following extra feature. This is not available from LISTFILE tapes.

User-Title: The operators can be asked to allow user-supplied titles to be read from the files themselves (see Appendix 1). The following points should be noted:

1. Title records are recognised by having a PFCC = #34. This can be done by using the H command in the EDITOR. The rest of the line must conform to the format specified in Appendix 2 (maximum line length = 60).
2. The title records should be immediately followed by a page throw. This will avoid data on the same page clashing with the title.
3. The PFCC #11 will no longer be effective.
4. The new title will remain for the rest of the run, or until another #34 record is read.
5. The title should include the user's username.

Title Example

From EDIT

H#34, I?T2C3H1,IL3V1,1/FICHE TITLE$T 
? 
H#51,I? 
? 
H#41

This will produce a title with the following characteristics:

1. 2 rows used for title space
2. 3 characters per image
3. first character in row 1, column 1
4. the letters FICHE TITLE will be 2/3 of a frame in height

APPENDIX 1: Macro FICHETAPE

Parameters

*MT magtapedescription.

This defines the magnetic tape (previously written using COPYOUT or NUTS COPYOUT) which is to be listed on microfiche.

The tape number must be included so that the operators can find the tape.

42X

This specifies that 42 times reduction is required. The default is 48 times.

PAGE n

n is the number of lines per page required. The default is 44, which allows a whole page to fit in the Ektalite viewers. 1906A lineprinter paper has 51 lines per page, and the proposed NMA standard is 64.

TITLE

This warns the operator that a user title record appears in the data on tape (a record whose PFCC is #34). If omitted, any record with PFCC=#34 will be printed as a normal line. The default title is set up for files produced by LISTFILE to PRFICHE, and is unlikely to be meaningful in other circumstances.

APPENDIX. 2: Fiche Titling Format

The fiche title may occupy any number of fiche image rows across the top of the fiche.

An integral number of title character positions (horizontally and vertically) may be assigned to each fiche image in the title rows.

The character size used for the title is determined by the number of characters specified horizontally per image.

Up to 128 (assembly parameter in print processor) characters may be displayed in the title (not including spaces). Up to 16 different messages may be put into the title area.

On the print tape, a comma in the carriage control position causes characters from the printing positions to be interpreted as titling information.

Titling information is in the following format:

The first character will be:

T -       Beginning of title (this title to supersede previous title). 
C -       Continuation of title information. 

(blank) - (from tape only). Step to next fiche with same title. All 
          subsequent characters will be ignored. 

The second character will be ignored unless the first character was a T, in which case it will be a digit telling how many fiche image rows will be used for title area.

Subsequent characters are in a free format, specifying titling parameters for the following titling message. (Blanks are ignored.) Each parameter specification consists of a letter followed by one or two numbers (separated by commas ). The letter designates which parameter(s) will be set; the number designates the value to be assigned. A dollar sign indicates that parameter assignments continue in next record. Parameter input will be terminated by a slash (/), which initiates input of text for this title message.

Parameters:

Cn -   Number of characters to be placed horizontally in fiche image area 
Ln -   Number of text line positions into which a fiche image area will be divided 
Hm,n - Horizontal position for first character of message 
       m = column number 
       n = character position within column (left character= 1) 
Vm,n - Vertical position for first character of message 
       m = row number 
       n = line position within rows (top line= 1) 

Text for message may be any character in the printing set. The dollar sign is used as an escape code and the following character is a control code. Control characters are:

      $ - Put $ into title message. 
      L - Line return; return to initial character position of this message one line position lower. 
      C - Text continues in next record, beginning with the third character. 
      M - End of message, parameters assignments for next message follow. 
      T - End of title. 
a digit - The digit (n) represents the number of characters to be used as a fiche 
          number. The following n characters will be used for the initial fiche #, 
          and its value will be incremented by one on each subsequent fiche. 

Title Extraction

It is possible to set up fields within the data, from which titles are to be extracted. The first character following the PFCC must be

E   (followed by a space). 

The rest of the record should consist of sets of data of the form:

Pn,aLn,bSn,c   terminated eventually by $T. 

In the above, the parameters n,a,b,c, have the following meaning:

n    Identification. Up to 6 fields may be defined. 
a    Page number, indicating the page from which extraction is 
     to occur. If a= 0, extraction takes place from the last page 
     on the fiche, whichever page this happens to be. 
b    Line number within page. 
c    Character position within line. 

Thus the start of the field has been defined. Extraction will take place afresh on each new fiche. The fields themselves can be referenced within a normal title record by:

$En,m$ 

where n is the field identification, corresponding to the previously defined field, and n is the number of characters to be taken. Data extracted in this way is still printed in the correct page within the fiche.

APPENDIX 3

The following file is included in :SUBLIB to provide an easier method of setting up a standard user title on a file.

:SUbLIB.FICHETITLE 

Contents

H#34, I?T2C3H1,1L3V1,1/***$T 
?
H#51,I
? 
H#41,T1,H 
E 

To insert a title on to the front of a file, the user can proceed as follows:

EDIT :SUBLIB.FICHETITLE,MYEDIT 

R/***/my title whicb does not have a question mark in it/ 
E 
EDIT MYFILE,MYNEWFILE,MYEDIT 
ERASE MYEDIT 

This will create a copy of the old file, with a title record as the first line. Both old and new files are retained.