JP3478640B2 - Data processing device, printing device, and control method - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data processing apparatus such as a printing apparatus having a time-out function that terminates processing when data is not received for a certain period of time.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a printing apparatus for printing on the basis of print data sent from a host computer, in response to reception of data from the host computer, a standby state (or a sleeve state) is shifted to a print preparation state and one page is printed. 2. Description of the Related Art Devices in which a printing operation on a recording sheet is started when minute print data is received and processed are widespread.

In such an apparatus, if the data transmission is interrupted after data of less than one page is transmitted from the host computer, the printing apparatus cannot get out of the print preparation state and consumes unnecessary power. Alternatively, when print data relating to another document or another control command is transmitted thereafter, there arises a problem that printing cannot be normally performed due to the mixture of print data, misinterpretation of the control command, and the like.

Therefore, if the transmission of data from the host computer is interrupted for more than the time (timeout time) set on the printer side, if there is print data that has not been printed, those data are printed out and the data processing is completed. A function (time-out function) is devised.

[0005]

In the printing apparatus having the time-out function described above, when the user transmits print data while performing some operation on the host computer, or an external device such as a hard disk connected to the host computer. It is impossible to transfer the print data all at once when reading the data from the printer and sending the print data while processing it. In such a case, an unnecessary timeout occurs and the original output cannot be obtained. The problem arises.

There is also a method of setting the above-mentioned timeout time to any value including infinity (turning off the timeout function), but it is troublesome for the user to set an appropriate value according to the application used. And difficult.

An object of the present invention is to make it possible to prevent the occurrence of an undesired time-out function while enabling the time-out function itself.

[0008]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention sets a suppression state in which a time-out function is suppressed when data is determined to be a job start command, and the data ends the job. It is characterized in that a time-out function is permitted in a permitted state when it is determined that the instruction is an instruction.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

(Embodiment 1) The present invention is applied to a laser beam printer (hereinafter abbreviated as LBP) and will be described in more detail with reference to the drawings.

Before describing the configuration of this embodiment, the configuration of the LBP to which this embodiment is applied will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view showing the internal structure of the LBP according to the embodiment. This LBP is a data source, and is used to register character patterns and form data from an externally connected host computer (201 in FIG. 2). (Regular form) can be registered.

In the figure, 100 is the LBP body,
Externally connected host computer (2 in Fig. 2)
01) to input and store the character information (character code), the form information, the macro command, etc., and create the corresponding character pattern, form pattern, etc. according to the information, and a recording sheet as a recording medium. Form an image on top. Reference numeral 113 denotes an operation panel on which switches for operation and an LED display for displaying the status of the printer, an LCD display, and the like are arranged, and 101 controls the entire LBP 100 and analyzes character information and the like supplied from the host computer. A printer control unit. The printer control unit 101 mainly converts the character information into a video signal of a corresponding character pattern to convert the laser driver 10 into a video signal.
Output to 2.

The laser driver 102 is a semiconductor laser 1
This is a circuit for driving 03, and switches on / off the laser beam 104 emitted from the semiconductor laser 103 according to the input video signal. The laser light 104 is swung in the left-right direction by the rotary polygon mirror 105 to scan the electrostatic drum 106. As a result, an electrostatic latent image having a character pattern is formed on the electrostatic drum 106. This latent image is a developing unit (toner cartridge) 10 around the electrostatic drum 106.
After being developed by 7, it is transferred to a recording sheet. A cut sheet is used for this recording sheet, and the cut sheet recording sheet is stored in a sheet cassette 108 mounted on the LBP, and is taken into the apparatus by a sheet feeding roller 109 and conveyance rollers 110 and 111, and then the electrostatic drum. 106.

A fixing device 112 fixes the toner (powder ink) transferred onto the recording paper to the recording paper by heat and pressure.

FIG. 2 is a control system 101 of the LBP shown in FIG.
3 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of FIG.

The LBP control system inputs the character code sent from the host computer 201, which is the source of the print information, and the data 213 consisting of the external character font or form information or macro registration information,
Document information is printed page by page. Two
Reference numeral 02 is an input / output interface unit for exchanging various kinds of information with the host computer 201, and 203 is an input buffer for temporarily storing various kinds of information input via the input / output interface unit 202. Reference numeral 204 denotes a character pattern generator, which includes a font information section 217 in which attributes such as width and height of characters and the address of an actual character pattern are stored, a character pattern section 218 in which the character pattern itself is stored,
And its read control program. The read control program is included in the ROM 214 and also has a code conversion function of calculating the address of the character pattern corresponding to the character code when the character code is input.

Reference numeral 205 denotes a RAM, which is a character pattern generator 2
A font that stores the character pattern output from 04
The cache area 207 includes a storage area 206 for storing external character fonts and form information sent from the host computer 201 and the current printing environment. In this way, by storing the pattern information once expanded into a character pattern in the font cache area 207 as a font cache, it is not necessary to decode the same character again to expand the pattern when printing the same character. , The expansion to the character pattern becomes faster.

Reference numeral 208 denotes a CPU for controlling the entire control system of the printer, which is the CPU 20 stored in the ROM 214.
The control program 8 controls the entire apparatus. An intermediate buffer 209 is an internal data group generated based on the input data 213. After receiving one page of data, converting it into simpler internal data and storing it in the intermediate buffer, it is the frame buffer 210 that stores the print image, at least in the case of full paint. It is possible to store a print image for one page and for two bands in the case of partial paint. An output interface unit 211 generates a video signal corresponding to the pattern information from the frame / buffer 210, and outputs the page printer printing unit 21.
Interface control is being executed between the two. 212
Is a printing mechanism portion of a page printer which inputs a video signal from the output interface unit 211 and prints image information based on the video signal.

Reference numeral 215 is a non-volatile memory composed of a general EEPROM or the like, and will be referred to as NVRAM (Non Vo) in the following.
This is referred to as "latile RAM". The NVRAM 215 stores the panel setting value designated by the operation panel 113.

216 is data transmitted from the LBP to the host computer 201.

The ROM 214 contains a program for analyzing data input from the host computer 201, and this program is usually called a translator. The LBP of the present embodiment is normally equipped with two translators, TRANS-A and TRANS-B, but the ROM 214 has another program ROM.
By adding TRANS-C, TRANS-
It is possible to add a translator such as D ...

The translators differ depending on the type of input data (page description language), and the more the number of installed translators, the more data (page description language) can be supported.

Timeout is one of the factors that causes the processing by the used translator to end, and then
It is important to switch the translator and process the data correctly when other types of data are received.

Translator TRAN in this embodiment
In S-A, the "timeout permitted state" and the "timeout suppressed state" are transited depending on the type of the received command.

The command for transitioning to the "timeout suppression state" means the beginning of print data. There is a "job start command", and the commands for transitioning to the "timeout permitted state" are "job end command" which means the end of print data, and "hard reset command" which returns (resets) TRANS-A to the initial state. Is there.
The command for shifting to the "timeout suppression state" does not have to be limited to the "job start command", and may be, for example, one of two commands that are normally used in a pair. In that case, the other command is a command that transits to the "timeout permitted state".

In the present embodiment, the time-out time can be arbitrarily set from the operation panel 113 or the like including infinity (time-out function off), but the following description will be made on the assumption that the time-out function is turned on. still,
When the time-out function is turned off, the time-out function is suppressed regardless of whether the above-mentioned command or the like is received.

Immediately after the activation of TRANS-A, the "timeout permission state" is set.

The control procedure for the TRANS-A to realize this state transition will be described with reference to the flow chart shown in FIG.

When TRANS-A is activated, first, in step S310, a transition is made to a "timeout permission state". As a result, when acquiring data from the input buffer 203,
If data cannot be acquired even after a certain period of time, a limeout will occur.

Next, in step S320, the input buffer 2
Data for one instruction is acquired from 03.

In step S330, it is determined whether or not the data has been normally acquired. If the input buffer 203 remains empty for a certain period of time and data cannot be acquired, it is determined that a timeout has occurred, and step S380 is performed.
Then, the residual data is printed and the process by TRANS-A is completed.

When the data for one instruction can be acquired, the instruction is processed in step S340.

After the processing for the instruction is completed, it is determined in steps S350, S360 and S370 whether the processed instruction is a "job start instruction", a "job end instruction" or a "hard reset instruction". In the case of the “job start command”, the process transits to the “timeout suppression state” in step S355 and returns to step S320. In the case of the “job end command” or the “hard reset command”, the process transits to the “timeout permission state” in step S365 and returns to step S320. When the data is acquired in step S320, the input buffer 2 is in the "timeout suppression state".
No timeout occurs even if 03 is empty for a certain period of time. (That is, the waiting time to get the data is equal to infinity).

According to the control described above, even if the data is not transferred in a batch, the data is described as a block of print data by the "job start command", the "job end command" and the "hard reset command". If
A normal output is guaranteed without a break in printing due to a timeout occurring in the middle, and a timeout occurs after the printing is completed.
Even if it is compatible with a translator other than ANS-A, it will not be processed using TRANS-A and will be processed correctly.

(Embodiment 2) The present invention is applied to LBP in this embodiment as well. The configuration of the applied LBP is the same as that of the previous embodiment (embodiment 1).

The TRANS-A in this embodiment manages the state in which there is no data in the intermediate buffer 209 as a "timeout permission state" and the state in which there is data in the intermediate buffer 209 as a "timeout suppression state".

The control procedure for the TRANS-A to realize this state transition will be described with reference to the flow chart of FIG.

When TRANS-A is activated, first, data for one instruction is acquired from the input buffer 203 in step S410, and then it is determined in step S420 whether a timeout has occurred.

When the data acquired in step S410 is less than one command, it means that a timeout has occurred. In this case, the process proceeds to step S421.
Check for residual print data. If the print data remains, that is, if there is data in the intermediate buffer 209, in this embodiment, it is recognized as the "timeout suppression state", and therefore the process returns to step S410, and the data is continuously obtained from the input buffer 203. To continue. When it is determined in step S421 that there is no data in the intermediate buffer 209, in the present embodiment, it is recognized that the "timeout permitted state". In this case, step S42
Since it is confirmed in 1 that there is no residual data, the process by TRANS-A is terminated without actually discharging the sheet.

If it is determined in step S420 that the timeout has not occurred, that is, if the data for one instruction is normally acquired in step S410, step S43.
After proceeding to 0 and processing the instruction, step S41
Return to 0.

According to the above-described control, even if the data is not collectively transferred, the page is not discharged in the middle due to a time-out, a normal output is guaranteed, and after the discharge is completed. Causes a time-out, so that even if the data to be transmitted thereafter corresponds to a translator other than TRANS-A, it is correctly processed.

(Embodiment 3) In the previous embodiments (Embodiment 1 and Embodiment 2), there is a "job start instruction" but no "job end instruction", and a "paper discharge instruction" for supporting the end of a page. , The “timeout suppression state” is continued for invalid data, and a time-out does not occur, so that the data that follows may not be processed normally.

Although this is extremely rare data, in order to cope with such a case, in this embodiment (embodiment 3), a mode for prohibiting the transition to the "timeout suppression state" can be provided and set by the operation panel 113. Transition, this mode is called "timeout suppression prohibition mode".

In this embodiment, this mode is applied to (Embodiment 1), and its control procedure will be described with reference to the flow chart shown in FIG.

Since the processing procedure is almost the same as that of the first embodiment, only different parts will be described.

In this embodiment, step S3 of (Embodiment 1)
Before transiting to the "timeout suppression state" in step S555 corresponding to 55, it is checked in step S551 whether or not the mode is the "timeout suppression prohibit mode".
At 555, the state transits to the "timeout suppression state".

(Embodiment 4) In this embodiment, the "timeout suppression prohibition mode" of (embodiment 3) is applied to (embodiment 2), and its control procedure is a flow chart shown in FIG. Will be described with reference to.

Since the processing procedure is almost the same as that of the second embodiment, only different parts will be described.

In this embodiment, step S4 of (Embodiment 2)
21 in the intermediate buffer 209 in step S621.
It is checked whether or not there is data, and if there is data, the process proceeds to step S622. In step S622, it is checked whether or not it is the "timeout suppression prohibition mode", and if it is "the timeout suppression prohibition mode, the process returns to step S610 corresponding to step S410 of (Example 2), and is not the" timeout suppression prohibition mode ". If so, step S corresponding to step S440 of (Example 2)
Proceed to 640.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is implemented by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus. In this case, the storage medium storing the program according to the present invention constitutes the present invention. Then, by reading the program from the storage medium to the system or device, the system or device operates in a predetermined manner.

[0051]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to prevent the occurrence of an undesired time-out function, and it is possible to perform control so that the time-out function does not occur in the middle of a job even when data cannot be collectively transferred.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating the configuration of a laser beam printer to which this embodiment is applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a control configuration of the main body shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of a control procedure in the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an example of a control procedure in the second embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an example of a control procedure in the third embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an example of a control procedure in the fourth embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 printer control unit 112 fixing device 113 operation panel 201 host computer 202 input / output interface unit 203 input buffer 204 character pattern generator 206 storage area 207 for storing various registration data including form data font cache area 208 CPU 209 Storage area 210 for storing print data 210 Frame buffer 212 for generating a final output image 212 Printing mechanism section 213 Input data from host computer 214 ROM 215 NVRAM 217 Font information section 218 Character pattern section

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. A data processing apparatus having a time-out function for terminating processing when data cannot be acquired for a predetermined time, and a job start command determining means for determining whether or not the data is a job start command, and the data is a job. A job end command determining means for determining whether or not the command is an end command; and in response to determining that the data is a job start command, the timeout function for suppressing the timeout function is set, and the data is the job end command. Depending on the judgment,
A data processing device, comprising: a state transition unit that brings the time-out function into a permitted state. 2. The data processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the residual data is printed when the data cannot be acquired for a predetermined time in the permission state in which the timeout function is permitted. 3. The data processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising an input buffer for storing data from the host computer, wherein the residual data is printed when the data cannot be acquired from the input buffer. 4. The data according to claim 1, further comprising an operation panel capable of setting the predetermined time, turning off of the time-out function, or prohibiting transition to the suppressed state. Processing equipment. 5. A method for controlling a data processing device having a time-out function for terminating processing when data cannot be acquired for a predetermined time, and a job start command determining step for determining whether or not the data is a job start command. A job end instruction determination step of determining whether the data is a job end instruction, and a suppression state in which the time-out function is suppressed in response to the data being determined to be the job start instruction, and the data is the job end instruction. Is determined to be
And a state transition step of changing to a permitted state in which the time-out function is permitted.