Choosing a printer for use with your System 5 Timing Console can be a very confusing task, considering the number of printers available today. To prevent lost time, money and sanity, Colorado Time Systems is providing information on the printers we recommend, as well as a list of printer codes (PCL) that can be entered into the printer setups to get your PCL printers working.

    Not every printer on the market will work with the System 5. This is because most printers do not have device drivers or on-board DOS emulators and require your computer to perform all the formatting. Printers that require the Windows environment to operate (typically the less expensive models) are in this category, and won’t work with the System 5. Available printers we recommend are the Brother HL-1440, Citizen GSX-190 and several Hewlett-Packard printers, such as the Apollo P-2200.

    Below are the HP PCL codes. These are the single most used codes these days. You can manually enter these codes into the “user defined printer control codes” section of setups in the swimming program of the System 5.

    10 CPI (PICA)                                     027 (ESC) – 040 – 115 – 049 – 048 – 072

    12 CPI (ELITE)                                   027 (ESC) – 040 – 115 – 049 – 050 – 072

    17 CPI (CONDENSED)                     027 (ESC) – 040 – 115 – 049 – 054 – 072

    6 LPI                                                    027 (ESC) – 038 – 108 – 054 – 068

    8 LPI                                                    027 (ESC) – 038 – 108 – 056 – 068

     

    Note:  code 027 is entered by choosing ESC from the menu.

    CPI = characters per inch (horizontally)

    LPI = lines per inch (vertically)