JPH01194023A - Method for recovering error in printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To shorten a system down time and to improve the continuation of a job by reloading all characters in a character pattern or a font pattern on an error generating position when a parity error is generated in a font memory using a DRAM. CONSTITUTION:When a parity error is generated in the font memory, a printer control part PC informs font memory parity error detecting data and a font address generating the error to a host computer 1. At the time of operator's recovery operation, the host computer 1 automatically reloads the reported font address and font pattern to the printer control part (PC) and outputs reprinting data from printing data in a page generating an error to execute reprinting. Consequently, a job about the contents of an error such that the content of the memory in a DRAM constituting the font memory are volatilized can be continued without turning off power for the printer control part PC and charging load to the operator.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an error recovery method for a printer device whose system is configured to load font patterns of printed characters from a host computer.

[Conventional technology]

A conventional device of this type is the one shown in Figure 3. The figure is a system configuration diagram when a host computer and a printer control unit are combined. In the figure, 1 is a host computer, 2 is a memory managed by the host computer 1, and character addresses and character patterns are stored inside. has been done.

A channel 3 connects the host computer 1 and the channel interface 4 to transfer print data.

Reference numeral 5 denotes an input processing CPU which checks the transfer data from channel 3 and prepares data to be transferred to channel N3. Reference numeral 6 denotes a translation table that manages (registers) the 9-character address transferred from the host computer 1 and converts the 9-character address into a physical address in the 7-ont memory 10. Reference numeral 9 denotes an output processing CPU, which actually performs printing-related processing and manages the page buffer 8, font memory 10, line bit buffer 11 that holds several lines of dot pattern data as a print pattern, and the printing section 12.

Next, the operation shown in Fig. 3 will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in Fig. 4. First, the host computer 1 reads the character address and character pattern stored in the memory 2 when the printer control unit PC is powered on, and transfers them to the input processing CPU 5 via the channel 3 and channel interface 4. The input processing CPU 5 registers the input character address in the translation table 6, and stores the font memory 1 obtained from the sonotranslation table 6.
Output processing of 0 physical address along with 7 ont pattern C
Transfer to PU9. Output processing CPU5 is input processing CPU
The font pattern is written to the font memory 10 according to the physical address of the font from step ST1.
).

Next, when the printer becomes ready for printing, the host computer 1 transfers the print data (character address) to the input processing CPU 5 via the channel 3 and channel interface 4 (step 5T2). Then, the input processing CPU 5 sends the transferred character address to the translation table 6, checks whether it is registered or not, and if it is registered, the font pattern is transferred from the translation table 6 to the stored font memory. 10 physical addresses are obtained and transferred to the output processing CPU 9.

The output processing CPU 9 stores the physical address t in the page buffer 8. When one page or more of print data is input to the page buffer 8, the output processing CPU 9 reads the physical address of the font memory 10, which is the print data, from the page buffer 8, and converts the physical address into a character pattern in the font memory 10. Convert line bit buffer 1
The character pattern is sent to the printing unit 12 via 1 and printed.

When a font memory parity error occurs in the font memory 10 during printing (step 5T3), the 7-ont memory 10 notifies the output processing CPU 9 of the error (step ST4). The output processing CPU 9 also notifies the input processing CPU 5 of the error. The input processing CPU 5 stops the data transfer between the host computers 1 and transfers the data to the host computer 1 through channel interface 4 and channel 3.
Notify the occurrence of an error via (Step 5TY)
.

When the host computer 1 receives the error report, it notifies the input processing CPU 5 to transfer the details of the error (step 5T6). The input processing CPU 5 reports to the host computer 1 the contents of the error and how many pages of data currently remain in the page buffer 8 (step 5T7).

The operator performs the reprinting recovery work (step ST8)
) and the host computer 1 output a command to clear all the print data in the page number (sofa 8) to the output processing CPU 9 via the channel 3, the channel interface 4, and the input processing CPUSe (step 5T9), and also output the reprint data. is calculated from the number of remaining pages in the page buffer 8 and outputted to the input processing CPU 5 again (step 5T10).Then, to execute reprinting, step 5T1
1), parity error detection is performed in the same way as last time (step 5T12).

In this way, the printing and error recovery operations between the host computer 1 and the printer control unit PC are performed, and the error recovery is completed (step STM3).

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

Since the error recovery method of the conventional printer device is executed as described above, a dynamic Φ random access memory (DRAM) is often used to avoid increasing the capacity of the font memory 10. However, when DRAM is used for a long time, volatile errors may occur. If there is a memory in which a volatile error has occurred, the conventional printer device recovery method retransfers the print data, but since no recovery work is performed on the memory, the error in the memory itself cannot be cleared. Power off
There were problems such as having to take emergency measures.

This invention was made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and in case of an error in which the memory contents in the DRAM constituting the font memory are volatile,
To provide an error recovery method for a printer device that enables the continuation of a job without turning off the power of a printer control unit or placing a burden on an operator.

[A precautionary measure to solve the problem]

In the error recovery method for a printer device according to the present invention, when a font memory parity error occurs, the printer control unit reports font memory parity error detection data and the font address where the error has occurred to the host computer, and when an operator performs a recovery operation, the printer control unit reports the font memory parity error detection data and the font address where the error has occurred to the host computer. The system automatically reloads the reported nine font addresses and font patterns into the printer control unit, and then outputs reprint data from the print data of the page where the error occurred and executes reprinting.

[Effect]

The error recovery method for a printer device according to the present invention automatically reloads an invalid font pattern by an error recovery operation by an operator after a parity error occurs in the printer's font memory, thereby recovering the 7-ont pattern even when a font memory parity error occurs. Normalization control will be performed.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. The system configuration of the printer control unit PC including the host computer 1 is the same as the conventional example shown in FIG. 2, but the font memory 10 has a function of transmitting the physical address of a character when a font memory parity error occurs to the output processing CPU 9. have.

In addition, the reverse translation table T converts the physical address of the font memory 10 into a normal character code, and performs the reverse conversion while the translation table 6 converts the character code to the physical address of the font memory. It is.

Next, the operation will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, when the printer control unit PC is powered on, the host computer 1 reads out the font address and font pattern from the memory 2 in which the font address and font pattern are stored, and loads the font pattern into the font memory 10 (step ST1). )
is the same as the prior art described in FIG. Also, the procedure for inputting print data to the page buffer 8 (step 5T2)
) is also the same. The output processing CPU 9 starts printing when one or more pages of data are input to the page buffer 8. The font memory 10 is a page buffer 8
The character pattern is read from the physical address of the character from the font memory 10. During reading, when font memory parity occurs (step ST3'), the character pattern is read from the font memory 10.
immediately stops reading and notifies the output processing CPU 9 of the font memory parity error (Stella 7
'5T4), the output processing CPU 9 reads from the font memory 10 the physical address of the character that caused the font memory parity error. As a precaution, the output processing CPU 9 notifies the input processing CPU 5 of the occurrence of an error and stops reading the page buffer. When the input processing CPU 5 reports an error to the host computer 1 via the channel interface 4 and channel 3 (step ST5
), the host computer 1 stops the transfer of print data and takes in the error details and the number of remaining pages in the page buffer 8 from the input processing CPU 5 (step ST7).
. The host computer 1 analyzes the error details (step 5T14), and if it determines that it is a font memory parity error, it instructs the input processing CPU 5 to notify the invalid character address (step 5T15). The input processing CPU 5 converts the physical address of the character in which the parity error has occurred from the output processing CPU 9 into a character code using the inverse translation table 7, and transfers it to the host computer 1 (step 5T16).

Further, the input processing CPU 5 reports the illegal character address to the host computer 1, and at the same time disables the illegal character address translation location in the translation table 6 from being registered. When the operator confirms the error details and performs a recovery operation, the host computer 1 first reads the imported character code and font pattern from the memory 2, and
Channel 3, channel interface 4, input processing C
PU5, translation table 6, output processing CP
The font pattern is reloaded into the font memory 1o via UB (step ST17).

Next, the host computer 1 calculates the page where the error occurred based on the number of pages output so far and the number of pages in the page buffer 8 at the time of the error occurrence, and transfers print data again from the data of the page where the error occurred (step 5T18).

The printing and error recovery procedures between the host computer 1 and printer control unit 20 have been described above.

In the above embodiment, the recovery method was explained only for re-registering the character pattern in which the font memory parity error occurred, but it does not cause any trouble to other fonts, and although it is optimal, the procedure is It takes some time. Therefore, in FIG. 2, when a font memory parity error occurs, all memories are assumed to be defective, and the host computer 1 inputs and processes an initialization command for all translation tables 6 by an operator's recovery operation after the error. Step ST
19), a method in which all font patterns are then re-registered from Mesori 2 produces the same effect as the above embodiment.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, when a parity error occurs in a font memory using DRAM, the character pattern where the error occurred or all the characters of the font pattern are reloaded, so that the DRAM is free from volatility. If the data is incorrect, turn off the printer power.
Since data can be restored without the need to perform additional operations, it has the effect of reducing system down time and improving job continuation.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of printing and error recovery procedures according to one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart of another embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. The block diagram, FIG. 4, is a 70-chart of a conventional printing and error recovery procedure. In the figure, 1 is a host computer, 2 is a memory, and 5 is a host computer.
8 is an input processing CPU, 8 is a page buffer, 9 is an output processing CPU, 1G is a font memory, and 12 is a printing style PC is a printer control unit. Patent applicant: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (2 others) Amendment to Figure Ii4 procedure (voluntary) 1. . . 3, η, 28 years old, 1, 2, 1, -1; Display of patent application No. 17329-1983 2
, Name of the invention Error recovery method for printer device 3, Person making the amendment Representative Moriya Shiki & Subject of the amendment (1) Claims column 6 of the specification, Contents of the amendment (1) Patent claims of the specification Correct the range as shown in the attached sheet. (2) Delete [Font memory... method] from line 10 to line 16 of page 6 of the specification. (3) In the second line of page 7 of the specification, "as done" is amended to "as done, especially". (4) "Detected data" on page 7, line 12 of the specification will be corrected to "information." 7゜Document stating the scope of claims after the amendment to the list of attached documents One or more copies of the scope of claims after amendment Load the font pattern to be printed by the printing unit from the host computer into the font memory of the printer control unit and store it. In addition, in an error recovery method for a printer device that performs reprinting by outputting reprint data by an operator's operation when a parity error is detected, a parity error occurs in the print data of the font memory while reading a font pattern from the font memory. When this occurs, the printer control unit reports the error to the host computer, and then when the operator performs a recovery operation, the host computer automatically issues a font memory clear command before retransferring the print data that caused the error. An error recovery method for printer devices that outputs the font pattern, clears the font memory, and then reloads the font pattern.

Claims (1)

[Claims] Errors in the printer device that loads and stores the font pattern to be printed by the printing unit from the host computer into the font memory of the printer control unit, and also outputs reprint data and executes reprinting by operation from the operator when a parity error is detected. In the recovery method, while reading the font pattern from the font memory,
When a parity error occurs in the print data in the font memory, the printer control unit reports the error to the host computer, and then when the operator performs a recovery operation, the printer control unit reports the error to the host computer before retransmitting the print data that caused the error. An error recovery method for a printer device that automatically outputs a page buffer clear command to clear the font memory and reloads the font pattern again.