The Schiffli machine function set is traditionally programmed into punched cards. These cards were designed a hundred years ago at which time the developers did not foresee RCC and INC. Therefore the code set did not contain any of these commands.
For mechanical machines reading Jacquards, manufacturers had two choices:
Insert a Stop function in the design where they wanted to change needles. The operator then set the new combination/needle pattern manually.
Borrow an existing command, such as the Cord function, and use it to control the needle changes.
For electronic controllers it was easy – introduce a new electronic format with extended capabilities.
With ES Schiffli you can nominate each Stop and Color Change and assign them to a station number. The program then works out the necessary codes to select the appropriate station number.
RCC machines can only access each station in a cyclic manner, for example:
from Station 1 go to Station 2, 3, 4, 5 to reach Station 6
from Station 9 go to Station 10, 1, 2, 3 to reach Station 4.
ES Schiffli supports encoding of this functionality.
Note: With RCC machines, usually only the needles change automatically while the Borer is installed in one design repeat only.