JPH0869363A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To surely print out received data without deterioration in print quality and without intermission of print. CONSTITUTION: In the print processing where print data described in a printer description language received from a host computer 101 are printed out by using a printer engine 110, a main storage control section 109 monitors the operating state of a main storage device 108 of a printer 105. When the remaining capacity of the main storage control section 109 is deficient, whether or not an idle memory area is in existence in a storage device 102 of the host computer 101 is inquired about, and when the idle area is available in the storage device 102, data in the main storage device 108 are sent to the host computer 101, by which the data are stored in the storage device 102. The save data in this way are sent from the host 101 to the printer 105 in a proper timing such as end of one page recording and stored in the main storage device 108.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer, and more particularly to a data format in which a host computer transmits print data described in a printer description language of a predetermined format to a printer, and a printer language analysis means of the printer can drive a printing mechanism. The present invention relates to a printing device that converts the data into a print format.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a method of classifying printers, in addition to classification by recording method, classification by data input / output method with a host computer is known. For example,
As in dot matrix printers and other line printers, there are so-called page printers as well as printers that record data input from a host computer in the form of character codes in units of one character or one line.

A page printer receives data described in a so-called printer language (also referred to as a page description language) from a host computer and expands the received data into a bit map image using only resources inside the printing apparatus. , A printing mechanism such as an electrophotographic system is used for printing.

[0004]

The page printer as described above performs a fairly high-level data process of interpreting the printer language and developing it into a bit map image, which is relatively large for the internal process of the printer. Requires main storage capacity. However, it is difficult to estimate an appropriate capacity of the internal main memory device in advance, and the main memory may be insufficient depending on the printing process.

In the conventional printing apparatus of this type, in order to cope with the shortage of the main memory, an overrun is caused to interrupt the printing, or the created bitmap image is compressed, so that the main memory is free. A method of creating an area and using the area to continue printing is known.

However, such a conventional coping method cannot be said to be an excellent method. In other words, if the printing is stopped, the printing process desired by the user cannot be realized, and even if the cause of the interruption of printing due to lack of main memory is known, printing is not performed unless memory is added. It is expected that the method and layout will have to be changed, and the printing process desired by the user cannot be completely executed.

[0007] Further, the method of making a free space in the main memory by compressing a bit map is also limited, and when print data that requires an extremely large amount of main memory is received for print processing, this kind of Even with this method, there are problems such as memory overflow or deterioration of the print result due to compression of the main memory data.

An object of the present invention is to reliably receive print data without degrading print quality and without interrupting printing even when the printer receives print data which requires a large amount of main memory for print processing. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing device capable of printing out the generated data.

[0009]

In order to solve the above problems, according to the present invention, a host computer transmits print data described in a printer description language of a predetermined format to a printer, and a printer language analysis means of the printer. In a printing device for performing printing by converting a printing mechanism into a drivable data format by means of main memory monitoring means for monitoring the usage status of a main storage device used in data conversion by the printer language analysis means, and the main memory. Control for saving the data in the main storage device to the storage device on the host computer according to the monitoring result of the monitoring means and restoring the data of the main storage device saved to the storage device on the host computer at a predetermined timing. A structure having means is adopted.

[0010]

According to the above construction, the data in the main memory of the printer is saved in the memory of the host computer according to the monitoring result of the usage status of the main memory, and the data in the main computer of the printer is saved at a predetermined timing. By restoring the data of the main storage device saved in the storage device, it is possible to cope with the shortage of the main storage.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the structure of a printing apparatus adopting the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 101 is a host computer including a workstation, personal computer and the like, and 105 is a printing apparatus (hereinafter referred to as printer) such as a laser beam printer.

The host computer 101 is a storage device 10.
2, the storage device 102 is composed of a storage mechanism such as a semiconductor memory or a hard disk drive. Depending on the configuration of the operating system, the storage device 102 may include a virtual storage mechanism.

The storage device 102 includes a storage device control unit 103.
Controlled by. The storage device controller 103 is composed of software of a CPU (not shown) of the host computer 101. The format may be configured as a part of operating system software or as driver software such as a memory manager, and the format as software does not matter. The storage device control unit 103 investigates the availability of the storage device 102 and controls storage of save data, which will be described later, in the storage device 102.

Host computer 101 and printer 10
5 is bidirectionally connected by a suitable interface system such as a Centronics interface, a SCSI interface, or a serial interface. Further, the host computer 101 and the printer 105 may be connected by a LAN or the like.

Reference numeral 104 is a received data judgment unit for judging whether or not the data transmitted from the printer 105 is save data from the main storage device 108 of the printer 105, which will be described later.
The above determination is performed by analyzing the data transmitted from the.

The printer 105 has a printer engine 110 composed of a laser beam printer mechanism or the like. In addition, the printer 105 has an emulator 107.
This emulator 107 interprets the data described in the printer language received from the host computer 101, develops the received data into a bitmap image, and prints the data by the printer engine 110. It has a main control mechanism (not shown).

At the time of printing processing, the main storage device 108 including a semiconductor memory or a storage mechanism such as a hard disk drive is used. The main memory 108 can also be composed of a virtual memory mechanism.

As described later, when the capacity of the main storage device 108 is insufficient, the data is saved from the printer 105 to the storage device 102 of the host computer 101, and saved at a predetermined timing, for example, after printing one page. The data is returned to the main storage device 108. The input data determination unit 106 is the data sent from the host computer 101, which is the saved data, and is stored in the main storage device 10.
8 to determine whether it should be stored directly.

The main storage device 108 includes a main storage control unit 109.
Controlled by. The main storage control unit 109 determines whether or not there is a free area in the main storage device 108, and if there is no free area, communicates with the host computer 101 to detect the free status of the storage device 102 of the host computer 101, If so, control is performed to save the contents of the main storage device 108 to the storage device 102.

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be described with reference to the flow charts of FIGS. Figure 2
Indicates the control at the time of printing performed by the emulator 107 and the main storage control unit 109 of the printer 105.

The printer 105 is the host computer 1
When the print data described in the printer language from 01 is received, it is converted by the emulator 107 into a data format (bitmap data or the like) that can drive the printer engine 110 (step S201), and print data expansion processing is performed. At this time, the main memory control unit 109 monitors the usage status of the main memory 108 (step S20).
2). The usage of the main storage device 108 is monitored by comparing an appropriately determined remaining capacity threshold value with the remaining capacity of the main memory.

When the main memory becomes insufficient in step S202, the main memory control unit 109 inquires of the host computer 101 side whether the storage device 102 has a free space (step S203). Data transmission / reception for this inquiry is performed in a format according to the interface system between the host computer 101 and the printer 105.

When the host computer 101 receives this inquiry, the storage device control unit 103 checks whether the storage device 102 has a free space, and sends the result to the printer 105.

The main memory control unit 109 receives the result of the inquiry (step S204), and if there is no free space, performs either overrun or memory compression as in the conventional case (step S205).

On the other hand, if the storage device 102 has a free space, the contents of the main storage device 108 are copied to the host computer 10.
Send to save to 1. The data transmitted to the host computer 101 in this way is the received data determination unit 1
04, for example, by identifying the control code attached to the data packet, it is identified that the data is saved data from the main storage device 108 of the printer 105, and the storage device is controlled via the control of the storage device control unit 103. (Step S206). When the data saving is successful in this way, the main memory control unit 109 causes the main memory device 1 to
A flag or the like is set at an appropriate position of 08 and the fact that the data is saved to the host computer 101 is stored.

The saved data is restored as shown in FIG. Appropriate processing timing, for example, completion of expansion of print data for one page (step S301)
When detecting "," the main memory control unit 109 determines whether or not the data has been saved, for example, by determining the previous flag (step S302).

If the data has not been saved, the data in the main storage device 108 is transmitted to the printer engine 110 for printing as usual (step S306), but if the data has been saved, the host computer 101
A data return request is made to the storage device control unit 103 (step S303). When the storage device control unit 103 receives this data return request, the storage device controller 103 stores the saved data in the storage device 10.
The data is read from the printer 2 and transmitted to the printer 105 (step S304).

The data transmitted to the printer 105 at this time is saved data to be restored to the main storage device 108 of the printer 105 by the input data judging unit 106 identifying the control code attached to the data packet. Is identified and stored directly in the main storage device 108 (step S305). When the saved data is restored to the main storage device 108 in this way, the main storage device 10
The data in 8 is sent to the printer engine 110 and printed (step S306).

According to the above-described embodiment, even if the main memory of the printer is full, it is possible to save the data in the main memory of the printer by using the storage device of the host computer. It is possible to prevent overrunning or memory compression processing, prevent printing interruption and deterioration of the print result due to memory compression, and have an excellent effect of realizing printing intended by the user as much as possible.

[0031]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Depending on the monitoring result of the usage status of the main memory, the data in the main memory of the printer is saved to the memory on the host computer, and the data of the main memory saved to the memory on the host computer is stored at a predetermined timing. Since the configuration that restores the data is adopted, even when the printer receives print data that requires a large amount of main memory, it does not deteriorate the print quality and does not interrupt printing and reliably receives it. It is possible to provide an excellent printing device that can print out the generated data.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a structure of a printing system adopting the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a procedure for saving the contents of the main memory of the printer in a storage device on a host computer.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a procedure for storing data saved in a storage device on a host computer in a main memory on a printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference numeral 101 host computer 102 storage device 103 storage device control unit 104 received data determination unit 105 printer 106 input data determination unit 107 emulator 108 main storage device 109 main storage control unit 110 printer engine

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A printing apparatus for transmitting print data described in a printer description language of a predetermined format to a printer from a host computer, converting the print mechanism into a data format capable of driving a printing mechanism by a printer language analysis means of the printer, and performing printing. A main memory monitoring unit for monitoring the usage status of the main memory unit used when data is converted by the printer language analyzing unit; and a host computer for storing data in the main memory unit according to the monitoring result of the main memory monitoring unit. A printing apparatus comprising: a control unit that saves the data in the main storage device, which is saved in the storage device on the host computer, at a predetermined timing.