GB2251107A

GB2251107A - Printer

Info

Publication number: GB2251107A
Application number: GB9125493A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Kenichi Fujii; Hisashi Uemara; Kazuya Bessho
Original assignee: Kanzaki Paper Manufacturing Co Ltd
Current assignee: Kanzaki Paper Manufacturing Co Ltd
Priority date: 1990-11-30
Filing date: 1991-11-29
Publication date: 1992-06-24
Anticipated expiration: 2011-11-29
Also published as: GB2251107B; GB9125493D0; DE4139488A1

Abstract

A high speed printer (Figs. 2A, 3A) capable of printing upon reception of a print instruction and continuously with few stoppages employs a memory (6) with a buffer (61) to receive coded print data and storage means (62) for storing their bit patterns generated upon reception of such print data, thereby making the print data readily available for printing. Figs. 2B, 3B contrast prior art. <IMAGE>

Description

22511,37 PRINTER

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to printers, and more particularly, to a printer which is of a type such that print data that is coded is printed while converted into dot patterns.

Conventionally, print data from an external source is received in the form of code, stored in the form of code in a memory, developed into bit patterns upon reception of a print instruction and stored in an output buffer memory, and printed.

In such a system, it is af ter the print instruction has been received from the external source that the bit pattern generation is activated; i. e., it takes, e.g., several seconds, f rom the reception of the print instruction to the print start, and this has been a hindrance f or increasing the printer speed.

(When characters or graphic patterns are printed by a printer, what is most time-consuming other than actual printing is the processing of generating a bit pattern. The time required for this is generally called an,editing time,,, which, in some cases, takes 2/3 of the total printing time.) Although various attempts have heretofore been made to overcome this problem, no viable solution has yetbeen found.

In the above conventional system, the development of coded print data into a bit pattern succeeds the.reception of a print instruction. Thus, if the editing time is required in 1 - addition to the actual printing or if variable items are included in the print data, all frames must be developed into bit patterns.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An object of the invention is to provide a high speed printer that is capable of printing upon reception of a print instruction and continuously with few stoppage.

The invention has been able to achieve the above object by storing print data while generating their bit patterns upon reception of such print data and thereby making the print data readily available for printing.

In a printer of such a system that print data is stored in a memory in advance and printed upon reception of a print instruction, it practically imposes no problem that it takes is certain time to store (register) the print data in the memory.

In the system of the invention, the editing time that has heretofore been taking the majority of time is absorbed into the registering time, so that printing can be initiated upon reception of a print instruction from an external source, thereby allowing printing to be completed within a minimal time.

In a printer of such a system that print data trans"ferred from an external source is received in the form of code, and the thus received print data is stored in a memory of the printer while developed into a bit pattern ready to be used as actual print data so that the print data can be printed upon 2 - reception of a print instruction, a plurality of f rames are prepared, each f rame being used to develop the print data into a bit pattern, and succeeding print data are developed into bit patterns in remaining frames concurrently while the preceding print data of a single frame is being printed.

A plurality of f rames to store print data developed into bit patterns are provided, so that the frames can be used alternately between printing and bit development/storage for concurrent processing.

pattern That is, the time dedicated to bit pattern generation in one frame can be absorbed into the printing time of another f rame, thereby allowing actual printing to be performed continuously.

Further, the function of copying the bit pattern of a (k - 1)th frame to a kth frame, and the function of developing only a variable item into a bit pattern and overwriting the developed variable item onto a frame of a corresponding page based on a piece of data are provided, the piece of data being such that is included in the print data transferred from an external source and that identif ies a variable item from a f ixed item. The variable item is data whose content is changed every page, while the fixed item is data whose content is not changed throughout all pages. With these functions, the entire printing speed can be improved..

Still further, when providing a plurality of frames, a memory is divided into such a number of frames as to correspond to a print size, so that the memory can be used efficiently.

- 3 is And at least one frame among the plurality of frames is used as a reference frame, and the print data stored in this reference frame in the bit pattern form can be copied to other frames.

Still further, one of the plurality of frames is used as a reference frame, which stores the print data of a fixed item in the bit pattern f orm; such print data is copied to other variable item frames; and the print data of a variable item in the bit pattern form is sequentially overwritten onto a frame of a corresponding page. As a result of this arrangement, the editing time for bit pattern generation for the entire print data can be reduced to a significant degree.

Still further, the print data transferred from an external source includes a piece of data that identifies a variable item from a fixed item, the variable item being data whose content is changed every page and the fixed item being data whose content is not changed throughout all pages, and the function of developing only the variable item into a bit pattern based on the piece of data and overwriting the thus developed print data onto a frame of a corresponding page is provided, so that the entire printing speed can be improved. The invention is particularly effective when applied to format registered printers and the like.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the accompanying drawings:

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram showing the system configurational of a printer of the invention; - -4 Figure 2A is a diagram showing storage of data in a part (RAM) of the printer shown in Figure 1; Figure 2B is a diagram showing conventional storage of data in the RAM; Figure 3A is a diagram showing a process flow of the printer of the invention in its relation to time; Figure 3B is a diagram showing a process f low of a conventional printer in its relation to time; Figure 4A is print data memory of Figure 4B is print data memory bf Figure 5A is is a diagram showing storage of data in a the invention; a diagram showing storage of data in a the conventional printer; a diagram showing a process flow of the printer of the invention in its relation to time; Figure 5B is a diagram showing a process flow of the conventional printer in its relation to time; Figure 6 is a diagram showing storage of data in the print data memory; and Figure 7 is a diagram showing a process f low of the printer of the invention in its relation to time.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram showing the system configuration of a printer of the invention; and Figures 2A and 2B are diagrams showing the divisions of a RAM in the printer of the invention and in a conventional printer, respectively, for a comparison.

In Figure 1, reference numeral (1) denotes an external device such as a personal computer; (2), a printer, e.g., a line printer, but not limited thereto; (3), a bus line; (4), an input/output device; and (5), a CPU.

Reference numeral (6) denotes a print data memory, which is formed of a RAM. It may be required that the memory have a capacity large enough to store one or two pages of print data developed in a bit pattern. It will be preferable, in some cases, to have a capacity large enough to store an entire set of print data developed in bit patterns.

Reference numeral (7) denotes a control program memory, which is made up of, e.g., a ROM and stores not only data editing programs, print control programs, and various other control programs usually required for a printer, but also, e.g., programs which execute processing shown in a flowchart of Figure 3A. Reference numeral (8) denotes a print head.

Figures 2A and 2B are diagrams in which use of the RAMs of the invention and of the conventional example are compared. In the invention, as shown in Figure 2A, the print data received in the f orm of code is not only stored in an input buffer (61), but also developed into a bit pattern either immediately thereafter or swiftly, and stored in the remaining area (62) in the RAM in the forn of bit pattern.

On the oth&r hand, in the conventional example, the print data is received in the form of code as shown in Figure 2B, stored in an area (64) as coded via an input buffer (63), - 6 read into an output buffer (65) while developed into a bit pattern every predetermined amount upon reception of a print instruction, and printed.

Figures 3A and 3B are diagrams showing the print data processing flows from the reception of print data to printing in their relation to time for the printer of the invention and for the conventional example, respectively, for a comparison.

In the conventional example print data is received as coded as shown in Figure 3B, stored as coded, and printed by repeating the process of receiving a prj-'nt instruction and developing the print data into a bit pattern. As a result, the printing time from the print start instruction to the print end is relatively long. On the other hand, in the invention the print data received as coded is stored as coded as shown in Figure 3A, and simultaneously therewith, developed into a bit pattern and stored. Bit pattern generation may be handled either on a single page basis or on an appropriately selective basis. In some cases, all the received data may be developed into bit patterns at once and stored.

In short, the received print data is converted into bit pattern data swiftly and stored in the RAM, thereby allowing the printing process to be readily executed upon reception of a print instruction. This contributes to significantly reducing the printing time from the reception of a print instruction to the end of printing.

- 7 The degree of reduction in printing time depends on the print pattern; the printing time can be reduced to about a half that of the conventional example. With improvements in the actual printing speed, a further reduction can be expected.

While a comparatively large capacity must be provided to retain the print data in the form of bit pattern, there are high-density and high-speed memory devices which can meet such requirement. For example, to print data that amounts to (24 dots x 24 dots/character) x 1000 characters per page, a total capacity-of 0.576M bits is sufficient.

In line printers the required capacity is determined by the total print area rather than the number of characters. For example, data that amounts to twice an area of 104 mm (wide) x 256 mm (long) can be stored with 2M bits or so (this capacity may be utilized for the repetitive cycle of concurrent processing that involves the operations of printing the preceding bit-patterned data and developing succeeding data into bit patterns/storing).

The total printing time from the reception of print data to the end of its printing can similarly be curtailed.

As described above, the invention provides the following advantages.

Since print data is stored in the RAM in the form of bit Pattern when th! print data has been received, printing can readily be executed upon reception of a print instruction.

is 2) Therefore, the entire printing operation can be made realtime and quicker. If the invention is applied to a sales system in which data is printed on labels and such printed labels are affixed to products or to a production control line and various other systems, the invention can improve efficiency of each such system as a whole.

Another embodiment of the invention will be described next. In this embodiment a memory consisting of a plurality of frames is provided, and while preceding print data in a single frame is being printed, succeeding print data is concurrently developed into a bit pattern and stored.

The control program memory 7 shown in Figure 1 stores a program for performing a series of processing shown in a flowchart of Figure SA.

Figure 4A shows how the storing area of the RAM of this embodiment is used, while Figure 4B shows the same in the case of the conventional example. As shown in Figure 4A, it is so arranged in this embodiment that the print data received in the form of code is not only stored in the input buffer (61), but also developed into a bit pattern either immediately thereafter or swiftly and stored as bit-patterned in the remaining area (62) of the RAM. The area (62) has a capacity equal to two frames or more, and used as divided into a first frame (62a) and a second frame (62b). If the print size is relatively small, the RAM may be divided into three or more f rames to allow concurrent processing to be performed on a single frame basis.

On the other hand, as shown in Figure 4B, in the conventional example the print data is received in the form of code, stored as coded in areas (66), (67) via an input buffer (65), read to an output buffer (68) while developed into bit patterns every predetermined amount upon reception of a print instruction, and printed. Reference numeral (66) denotes a fixed item storage area; and (67), a variable item storage area. - Figure 5A is a diagram showing the print data processing flow from the reception of print data to printing in its relation to time in the invention; and Figure 5B shows the same for the conventional example.

The Figure 5A processing flow will be described.

A) In a format registered printer first sends fixed item data. Upon reception of fixed item data in the form of code, the data is stored as coded in the input buffer (61), immediately developed into a bit pattern, and stored in the first frame (62a) (F).

B) Upon reception of variable item data in succession to the fixed item data, the variable item data is stored as coded in the input buffer (61), developed into a bit pattern for a first page, and additionally written onto the first frame.

c) The printing of the data in the f irst f rame (f ixed item F and variable item V1) is started, while, in the meantime, the - 10 is processing for a second page is started and the data in the first frame is copied to the second frame (62b).

Upon reception of variable item data V2 for the second page, the data is similarly developed into a bit pattern and additionally written onto the second frame. The editing operation of the second frame is performed concurrently with the printing operation of the data in the first frame, and both operations end almost simultaneously.

D) Concurrently with printing the data in the second frame, the editing operation such as copying from the second frame to the first frame, receiving variable item data V3 for a third page, developing the data V3 into a bit pattern, and additional writing onto the first frame is performed.

Similarly, the processing is repeated, involving the two frames.

E) As is apparent from the above description. the editing time of the print data is absorbed into the actual printing time. allowing actual printing to be continuously. While the case where a two-frame memory is used has been described above, it goes without saying that the processing efficiency will be improved if a memory with three or more frames is used.

As shown in Figure 5B, in the conventional example, print data is received in the f orm of code and stored as coded. At the time of printing, the process of receiving a print instruction, developing the print data into a bit pattern, and printing the print data is then repeated. As a result, the - 11 printing time between the reception of a print start instruction and the end of printing becomes relatively long. In contrast thereto, as is understood f rom Figure 5A, the advantage that a set of fixed and variable item data has been developed into a bit pattern bef ore the end of printing a preceding page so that the bit pattern used f or actual printing is ready in the printer of the invention. As a result, even a print pattern including variable item data can be printed continuously in the form of actual print pattern, hence contributing to further improving the printing speed.

Since a succeeding page has been prepared before a preceding page is ended, there is no need to stop printing. In other words, the editing time for the succeeding page is absorbed into the printing time of the preceding pages by means of concurrent processing.

Still another embodiment will be described. In this embodiment a plurality of frames are arranged by dividing a memory, each such frame corresponding to a print size. In this case, the print data memory 6 must has a capacity large enough to accommodate a maximum print data size of two or more pages.

The control program memory 7 stores a program for performing a series of operations shown in a flowchart of Figure 7.

Figure 6 shows how the internal area of the RAM of this embodiment is used. As shown in Figure 6, it is so arranged in the invention that the print data received in the form of code is stored in the input buffer (61), developed into a bit pattern either immediately thereafter or swiftly, and stored in the remaining RAM area (62) as bit-patterned. The received print data includes print size data, and the RAM area is divided into a plurality of frames (620), (621), (622), (623), es., the number being equal to the print size. The frame (620) is used as a reference frame, while the frames (621), (622), (623) are used for variable data processing. That is, it is so arranged that each frame has such a capacity as to store bit pattern developed data of a single print size and that shorter print sizes provide a larger number of frames.

Figure 7 is a diagrams showing the print data processing flow from the reception of print data to printing in its relation to time for the printer of the invention.

In the conventional example, as shown in Figure 5B, print data is received in the f orm of code and stored as coded, and the process of receiving a print instruction, developing the print data into a bit pattern, and printing the print data is then repeated. As a result, it takes a relatively long time for the printer to complete its printing time from the reception of a print start instruction to the end of printing.

on the other hand, in the invention, as shown in Figure 7, print data received in the f orm of code is stored as coded, and simultaneously therewith, is developed into a bit pattern and stored as bit-patterned.

- 13 The case where a memory is divided into f our f rames with three variable item processing frames will be described with reference to Figure 7.

A) Fixed item data, or format data, is received as first print data in the form of code and stored in the buffer area (61). Then, the memory is divided into a plurality of frames in accordance with the print size data incorporated in the fixed data, so that each frame has a capacity large enough to accommodate each print length.

B) Then, the fixed item data stored in the buffer area as coded is developed into a bit pattern and stored in the reference frame (620), while the same data is copied to the variable data processing frames (621), (622), (623), C) Upon reception of variable item data, such data are stored in the buffer area (61) and developed immediately thereafter. Data V1 for a first page are developed and stored (appended) in the first variable data processing frame (621), and the printing of the f ixed item data and the data V1 is started immediately thereafter.

D) With respect to variable item data V2 f or a second page, the operations of storing the data V2 in the f orm of code, developing the data in a bit pattern, and additionally writing the data onto the second. frame are similarly performed.

Since the data V1 and the like are still being printed at this stage at which the editing operation has been completed f or the second page, the printer waits for printing the second page.

Upon end of printing the data V1 and the like, printing of the second frame data V2 and the like is initiated.

E) Upon end of printing the data V1 and the like, the fixed item data is copied again in the first frame from the reference frame to initialize the first frame.

F) With respect to variable item data V3 for a third page and the like, the same operations are performed in succession to the second f rame data, and so are the operations f or the data V4 and the like.

G) As a result, the variable data V1, V2, V3 sequentially received are concurrently cyclically processed together with the corresponding fixed item data in the first, second, third frames, respectively. This dispenses with the waiting time f or bit pattern generation and the like, thereby allowing printing to be performed continuously and efficiently.

As is understood from Figure 7 and the above description, both the fixed and variable item data are developed into bit patterns to make the bit patterns prepared f or actual printing bef ore the printing of a preceding page has been completed, so that even a bit pattern including variable item data can be continuously printed in the f orm of actual print pattern, thereby contributing to further improving the printing speed.

The following advantages can be obtained by dividing a memory into a plurality of frames in accordance with the print size data.

- 1 Since it is no longer required to provide any superfluous a.rea, print data can be processed at a higher speed.

Since a maxim= number of f rames can be prepared in accordance with the print size, the number of processes subjected to concurrent processing is increased, which thereby reduces the printing time.

Since the fixed item data is always retained, a reference print pattern can always be reproduced even after operations such as additional writing have been performed.

Since the print pattern can be created in advance in the same amount as the number of f rames (strictly speaking, n1), the editing time can be absorbed into the printing time of a preceding page.

Since the case where even the print area of variable item data is changed can be handled, this system is superior to the system in which a plurality of frames are simply provided.

Simple multi-frame systems are successful in achieving continuous printing. However, they are no longer available when data to be additionally written (variable item data) is complicated.

In contrast thereto, this system, having a relatively long waiting time dedicated to. a series of processing for a single page, can provide a promising solution.

The memory is divided into a plurality of frames in accordance with the print size, and the capacity per frame may 16 - often be small, thereby allowing many frames to be prepared. As a result, a single page can be processed at high speeds, and the superiority of this system according over the simple multiframe system is thus consolidated.

Since a frame is initialized upon end of printing preceding print data, editing of succeeding print data can be initiated immediately thereafter.

17 -

Claims

CLAIMS 1. A printer comprising:

means for receiving print data in the form of code from an external source; means for developing said print data into a bit pattern; and means for storing said print data in a memory in the form of bit pattern.
2. The printer according to claim 11 further comprising:

means for printing said print data stored in said memory in advance, in response to a printinstruction from an external source.
3. The printer according to claim 11 further comprising:

means for storing said print data in the form of code, said print data being developed into the bit pattern by said developing means immediately after the operation of storing said print data received in the form of code.
4. The printer according to claim 1, 2 or 3 wherein said memory includes a plurality of frames, each frame storing a corresponding part of said print data in the form of the bit pattern.
5. The printer according to claim 4 and further comprising:

means for coping a bit pattern of a (k-1)th frame to a kth frame.
6. The printer according to claim 4 or 5, wherein said print data transferred from said external source includes a piece of data that identifies a variable item from a fixed item, said variable item being data whose content is changed every page, while said fixed item being data whose content is not changed throughout all pages, and said printer further comprises means for developing only said variable item into a bit pattern based on said piece of data and additionally writing said developed variable item onto a frame of a corresponding page.
7. The printer according to claim 11 further comprising means for dividing said memory into a corresponding number of frames based on a print size of said print data.
8. The printer according to claim 7, further comprising:

means for copying a content of one of a plurality of frames to other frames, said one frame being a reference frame.
9. The printer according to claim 8, wherein print data transferred from an exterhal source includes a piece of data that identifies a variable item from a fixed item, said variable item being data whose content is changed every page, while said fixed item being data whose content is not changed throughout all pages, and said printer includes means for storing said fixed item in said reference frame while developed into a bit pattern based on said piece of data, developing said variable item into a bit pattern after said fixed item has been copied to other variable item frames, and sequentially additionally writing said variable item onto a frame for a corresponding page.
10. The printer according to claim 9, further comprising means for automatically copying said content of said reference frame onto a variable item frame after a content of said variable item frame has been printed.
11. A printer substantially as described with reference to and as illustrated in Figure 1 and 2A or Figure 4A or Figure 6 of the accompanying drawings and/or operating in accordance with Figures 3A or 5A or 7 of the accompanying drawings.