JP2000127510A - Printing control device for dot line printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve a throughput by a method wherein paper feeding is executed and unnecessary driving of a shuttle is not executed even when data having continuous blank dot lines is provided. SOLUTION: A CPU 20 checks the content of data at each time when one dot line of print dot data is transmitted from an IFB 30 to a PMB 50. When the data is of a blank dot line, the CPU 20 increments a paper feed amount counter by one. When the data is not of a blank dot line, the CPU 20 executes paper feeding at one time by collecting the number of dot lines of the values of the paper feed amount counter via a print control circuit 60. After that, the CPU 20 executes one stroke of printing as usual via the print control circuit 60.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing control method for a dot line printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Since the printing principle of a dot line printer is already well known, description thereof will be omitted.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of a general dot line printer.

[0004] The CPU 20 receives data from the host device 10 and stores print-scheduled data in the data in an interface buffer (hereinafter referred to as IFB) 30. After that, the print schedule data is converted into print schedule dot data by reading out the corresponding font data from the font ROM 40 and transferred to another area in the IFB 30. After the transfer of the dot data to be printed for one line is completed,
The dot data to be printed for one stroke is transferred to a print memory buffer (hereinafter referred to as PMB) 50. Thereafter, the dot data to be printed is sent to the print control circuit 60, the hammer pin 80 is driven via the hammer pin control circuit 70 to perform printing, and the paper feed control is performed based on the paper feed data transferred to another area of the PMB 50. Circuit 9
Then, the paper feed motor 100 is driven via 0 to feed the paper to the next print dot line position.

FIG. 3 shows a print sequence in an example of the prior art.

Hereinafter, a case where a hammer capable of printing 10 dot lines in one stroke will be described.

In this example, when data corresponding to the number of dot lines for one stroke (10 dot lines in this example) is transferred to the PMB 50, printing and paper feeding are performed.

[0008]

In the conventional dot line printer, regardless of the content of the transferred data,
The CPU 20 drives the shuttle via the print control circuit 60 to perform printing. Therefore, even in the case of data in which blanks continue, the CPU 20 controls the print control circuit 60
, The shuttle was driven, and the paper feeding process was interrupted each time.

Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to improve the throughput of a dot line printer by performing only paper feeding without performing unnecessary driving of the shuttle.

[0010]

According to a first method of the present invention for solving the above-mentioned problems, a hammer bank having printing hammer pins is reciprocated, and printing is performed while a predetermined amount of paper is conveyed in the course of movement. In a dot line printer, when data of at least one continuous blank dot line exists, the reciprocating movement of the hammer bank is stopped until the next non-blank print data is transferred, and the paper is conveyed at a time. It is in.

A second method of the present invention for solving the above-mentioned problem is a dot line printer which performs printing while reciprocating a hammer bank having a printing hammer pin and transporting a predetermined amount of paper during the movement. When at least one continuous line of blank dot lines is present after the print data, after printing the print data, the paper is conveyed simultaneously with the printed area along with the data of the blank dot lines. It is in.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An example of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. Various conditions are the same as those of the above-mentioned prior art example.

FIG. 1 shows a printing sequence according to an example of the present invention.

In the present invention, every time the CPU 20 transfers the dot data to be printed from the IFB 30 to the PMB 50 by one dot line, the CPU 20 checks whether the dot data is a blank dot line.
Do not update the forwarding address to 50. At this time,
The CPU 20 adds 1 to the value of the paper feed amount counter.

On the other hand, if the transfer data is not blank,
The CPU 20 feeds the paper by the number of dot lines written in the paper feed amount counter via the print control circuit 60, and then performs the conventional one-stroke printing.

For example, in FIG. 1, when blank data is continuously present in 15 DLs (dot lines) and data other than blanks is transferred on the 16th DL, first, only the blank data area is fed, and then, 10DL is printed.

If the transfer data of the 3DL after the previous 10DL printing is only blank data, the 3DL of the blank data area is added to the printed 10DL.
Paper feed.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of the control operation of the present invention described above.

First, the CPU 20 sends the PM
The dot data to be printed for one dot line is transferred to B50, the transfer source address of the IFB 30 is sent for one dot line, and the value of the paper feed amount counter is increased by one (). Here, the CPU 20 counts the number of print dots. If the number of dots is 0, the transfer destination address of the PMB 50 does not move, and the process is repeated again (). On the other hand, if there is print data, the transfer destination address of the PMB 50 is fed by one dot line, and after the paper feed processing for the number of dot lines written in the paper feed amount counter is performed,
Clear the contents of the paper feed counter ().

Next, the CPU 20 determines whether or not data for 10 dot lines has already been transferred to the PMB,
It is determined whether there is data in B30 (). PM
Data transferred for 10 dot lines to B50 or IF
If there is no data in B30, CPU 20 performs printing processing via print control circuit 60, and returns the transfer destination address to PMB 50 to the top. () Otherwise, CPU
20 transfers one dot line of data from the IFB 30 to the PMB 50, and transfers the transfer source address of the IFB 30 and P
The transfer destination address of the MB 50 is fed by one dot line, and the value of the paper feed counter is increased by one (). After that, the determination is made again. At this point, if there is no data in the IFB 30, the process is terminated, otherwise the process is repeated again ().

In the above-described prior art and the example of the present invention, the CPU 20 performs the count processing of the number of print dots, the paper feed amount, and the blank dot line. It is also possible to perform the processing in a specific manner. Further, the area of the hammer pin 80 for which the driving is permitted can be set according to the dot data to be printed, and is not limited to the above example.

[0022]

As described above in detail, in the prior art, the CPU 20 drives the shuttle via the print control circuit 60 even in the case of a blank dot line. If continuing, CPU2
0 counts the number of blank dot lines as the paper feed amount,
Since the entirety of the blank dot line area detected continuously is controlled so as to perform only the paper feed at a time, an unnecessary empty shuttle can be eliminated, and the throughput can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a printing sequence illustrating an example of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a control operation according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a printing sequence showing an example of the related art.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a dot line printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 is a host device, 20 is a CPU, 30 is an IFB, 40 is a font ROM, 50 is a PMB, 60 is a print control circuit,
70 is a hammer pin control device, 80 is a hammer pin, 90 is a paper feed control circuit, and 100 is a paper feed motor.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A dot line printer which reciprocates a hammer bank having a printing hammer pin and performs printing while transporting a predetermined amount of paper in the course of movement. A print control method for a dot line printer, comprising: stopping reciprocating movement of the hammer bank until the next print data other than blank is transferred, and performing paper conveyance at one time. 2. A dot line printer in which a hammer bank having a printing hammer pin is reciprocated to carry out printing while conveying a predetermined amount of paper in the course of movement. A print control method for a dot line printer, wherein, if line data is present, after printing the print data, the paper is conveyed simultaneously with the blank dot line data together with the printed area.