Classic Computer Magazine Archive COMPUTE! ISSUE 71 / APRIL 1986 / PAGE 10

Readers Feedback

The Editors and Readers of COMPUTE!



Emphasized TI Character Set
The custom character set given for the Commodore 64 on pages 108-109 of COMPUTE!'S January 1986 issue can be used on the TI-99/4A with only slight modifications. Since that character definition data is listed in hexadecimal format, it can be read as a pattern-identifier string and assigned with the CALL CHAR statement (see page II-76 in the TI User's Reference Guide). Each line in the Commodore character set listing contains data for a single character plus a checksum value at the end of the line. To convert the data in each line to a 16-character pattern-identifier string, type in the first eight two-digit hexadecimal numbers (spaces are left out, of course). In the first line, for instance, the resulting string could be used with a CALL CHAR statement to redefine the @ character. To create the new character set, first enter this program:

100 FOR L=1 TO 94
110 READ C$
120 CALL CHAR(L+32,C$)
130 PRINT CHR$(L+32);
140 NEXT L
150 GOTO 150

    Next, you must enter a series of lines containing DATA statements. Each DATA statement represents the data for one character in the form of a 16-character pattern identifier string. For example, the first DATA line would look like this:

500 DATA 7CC6DEDE00007800

    Here is how to enter all of the DATA lines.

lines 500-800   Use data from line
                7108-71F8 (defines
                ASCII characters 33-63)
line  810       Use data from line 7000
                (ASCII 64)
lines 820-1070  Use data from lines
                7208-72D30 (ASCII
                65-90)
line  1080      Use data from line
                70D8 (ASCII 91)
line  1090      Use 00C06030180C0600
                as data (ASCII 92)
lines 1100-1110 Use data from lines
                70E8-70F0 (ASCII
                93-94)
line  1120      Use 000000000000FF
                as data (ASCII 95)
line  1130      Use data from line 7200
                (ASCII 96)
lines 1140-1390 Use data from lines
                7008-70D0 (ASCII
                97-122)
lines 1400-1420 Enter data from lines
                72D8-72E8 (ASCII
                123-125)
line  1430      Enter 000020745C080000
                as data (ASCII 126)

The result of your effort will be an emphasized font with true lowercase.
John Hedstrom

Thank you for your suggestion.