JPH01263063A - Printing controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To exhibit a high-speed printing performance of a printer engine part under the condition that a printing start command is issued after the completion of image drawing, by controlling a command processing part and a printing processing part by a page buffer control table part. CONSTITUTION:Printing data in a reception buffer part 12 is read by a command processing part 13. A command is interpreted by a command interpreting part 131. If the command belongs to an image drawing command, an image drawing command processing part 133 is started and a developing, image drawing processing is applied to one of page buffers 141-143. In a printing processing part 15, according to a printing start command dot pattern data is read from one of the page buffers 141-143, subjected to a parallel-to-serial conversion, and outputted to a printer engine part 16 as a video signal. The selection which should be applied to one of the page buffers for three pages between the processing by the image drawing command processing part 133 or the processing by the printing processing part 15 is performed by using a page buffer control table part 17.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a print control device for controlling optical printers such as laser beam printers, LBD (light emitting diode) printers, and LC8 (liquid crystal) printers.

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, in the field of personal computers and workstations,
Optical printers are becoming popular. Optical printers are connected to host computers such as personal computers and workstations via print control devices.

Conventionally, a printing control device is configured as shown in FIG.

In FIG. 2, a command string (hereinafter referred to as print data) sent by the host computer 20 is sent to a reception processing unit 21.
After being received by and temporarily stored in the reception buffer section 22, it is read out by the command processing section n, its contents are interpreted and executed, and drawn as a dot pattern in the page buffer (S1) 241. When drawing for one page is completed, the data in the page buffer 241 is read out by the print processing unit 25, subjected to parallel-to-serial conversion, and sent to the printer engine unit 26 as a video signal. The printer engine unit 26 executes the original printer process and prints one page of paper.

Some conventional print control devices have two page buffers 241 and 242 in the page buffer unit 24, as shown in FIG. 2 described above. In such a print control device, while drawing is being written to one page buffer, reading from the other page buffer to the printer engine section allows drawing by the command processing section n and printing by the print processing section 25 to be performed in parallel. processed,
I'm trying to improve printing performance.

Note that related devices of this type include, for example,
Examples include those disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. 60 and 41573.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

By the way, the effective printing time when the print control device and printer engine unit are connected can be analyzed and evaluated as follows.

First, the parameters T, Tp, Td, Tdmax
is defined as follows.

T: Effective printing time per page (sec/page) when the print control device and printer engine are connected Tp: Pages achieved when the print control device operates the printer engine at the maximum process speed without idle time Printing time per page (sec/page) Td: Drawing time per page (sea/page) TdmaX' Maximum drawing time (see/page) allowed under the condition that the printer engine section is operated at the maximum process speed At this time , the effective printing time T is as follows.

(+) If Td≦TdmaX, the effective printing time T can be set to 'rp, and the high-speed printing performance of the printer engine section can be exhibited.

(0) If Td> Tdmax, the effective printing time T
is slower than 'rp, and cannot take advantage of the high-speed printing performance of the printer engine.

Therefore, the larger Tdmax is, the more margin there is for drawing, so the effective printing time can be shortened.

However, in the conventional printing control device mentioned above, 20 ppm (
Pages per minute) or higher, T
No consideration was given to the fact that dmax takes much less time than Tp, and there was a problem in that the high-speed printing performance of the printer engine section could not be achieved.

For example, in the case of a high-speed optical printer with Tp==386C/page, 'rdmax is about 1 sec/page. Assuming that Tdmax = OB sec / page, current technology can only draw approximately 2,700 characters per page using a 32 dot x 32 dot character font, and if more characters are to be output, the printer engine must be run at its highest process speed. You won't be able to drive. That is, if approximately 5,400 characters are output per page, the output speed is approximately half of the printer engine performance.

Next, in a two-sided page buffer configuration, T'ama
The problem that x becomes less than Tp will be explained with reference to FIG.

FIG. 3 is a time chart showing the drawing and printing procedure when a two-sided page buffer is used. Here, the definitions of Tl and Tr are as follows.

In order to operate the optical printer engine at the maximum process speed, the maximum waiting time (see/page ) Tr: Reading time of page buffer data for one page (aec/page) In Figure 3, from T1+Tp=Tr+Tdmax,
'rp-Td, 11g, (=Tr-TI.Here, the reading time Tr is close to the printing time Tp. Also, T
I is 0.1 to 0.2 sec/page when a paper feed unit with a long paper path such as a large capacity paper deck is used, and these paper feed units are used frequently. 10-40 ppm (
Tp=1.
5-6 see/page. Therefore, Tr-TI
>0, that is, T'max <'rp.

On the other hand, Tdmax = TI + Tp - Tr,
Since Tp-Tr is about 05 sec/page at most, T'dmax is about 0.6 to 0.7 sec/page.

In FIG. 3, there is some discretion in determining interface signals such as a vertical synchronization request and a vertical synchronization signal between the print processing section 25 and the printer engine section 26. However, the four parameters Tdmax s Tp, 'ri, and Tr defined here always exist regardless of how these interface signals are determined, and Tdmax=T1+T
The relationship d-Tr also always holds true. Further, the values of each parameter are also generally within the range described above.

Therefore, in the conventional two-sided buffer system, the above problem always occurs regardless of how the interface signal is determined.

By the way, as a way to solve the above problem, a print start command (PRREQ signal) is issued to the printer engine section before the drawing is completed to start printing, and T'amax is slightly increased while the two-sided buffer remains. is possible.

However, with this method, the drawing time is undefined and may reach the order of several minutes per page. Therefore, unnecessary optical fatigue may be caused to the photoreceptor in the optical printer engine, shortening the life of the photoreceptor, and the waiting time (usually about a few seconds) until the optical printer engine starts reading the video signal.
In addition, problems arise in that printing errors such as paper jams may occur.

Therefore, it is not a good idea to issue a print start command before the drawing is completed.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the conventional invention and bring out the high-speed printing performance of the printer engine section under the condition that a print start command is issued after completion of drawing.

[Means to solve the problem]

The present invention includes a receiving section that receives print data consisting of a string of character codes and commands, a command processing section that interprets the print data and develops and draws it into a dot pattern, and a command processing section that interprets the print data and develops and draws it into a dot pattern. In a print control device having a page buffer section for storing print data, and a print processing section for reading print data stored in the page buffer section and outputting it to a printer engine section, the page buffer section is configured to store at least three paper pages of the page buffer. and is connected to the command processing section and the print processing section, and is used to select which of the plurality of page buffers to store the print data in, and from which to read the print data. The present invention is characterized in that it is configured by providing a page buffer control table section that stores control information for determining.

The page buffer section preferably includes a page buffer for three paper pages. That is, a page buffer section is configured by arranging page buffers on three sides. However, page buffers may be arranged on more than three sides.

The above page buffer control table section contains control information for each side of the page buffer section, such as "drawable", "
The configuration is such that each state of "drawing", 'ready to print', 'start printing', and 'printing' is established in sequence. In this case, 'drawing' and '1 printing' are each set to a certain number or more at the same time. stipulate that it will not be done.

[Effect]

The present invention has a configuration in which a command processing section and a print processing section are controlled by a page buffer control table section.

This enables parallel processing of drawing and printing for page buffers provided for at least three pages. In addition, for each side of the page buffer provided for multiple pages, the five states of drawing possible (page buffer is empty), drawing in progress, printing possible (drawing completed), printing start, and printing in progress are sequentially transitioned, and the drawing It is guaranteed that printing will not be performed on a certain number of surfaces at the same time.

Next, provide three page buffers ↓ From this, Td
What can be achieved with maX = Tp will be explained with reference to FIG. Incidentally, FIG. 4 is a time chart showing the procedure for sequentially using the three page buffers for drawing and printing.

In Fig. 4, the drawing of the fourth page is performed immediately after drawing the third page (at the time of *1 in Fig. 4) and immediately after the reading of the first page is completed (at the time of *3 in Fig. 4). You can start at the later time point, that is, the time point *1. Then, the drawing is completed at the time shown in *2, and a print start command is issued. (The printer engine can continue to operate at the maximum process speed Tp.) Therefore, even if drawing is performed only in the intervals *1 and *2, that is, Tp (sec/page), the printer engine can continue to operate at the maximum process speed. I can do it. Therefore s'r(imax
= Tp.

The above effects can be summarized as follows.

Tll Tdm, x=Tp.

+21 fil was achieved, and the print start command was not issued before the drawing was completed. Therefore, the above-mentioned extra light fatigue on the photoreceptor and extra printing errors can be avoided.

Note that when the number of drawing processors is 1, 'rama
Since the upper limit of x is 'rp, T'(I
ma X can be maximized.

〔Example〕

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

This embodiment includes a reception processing section 11, a reception buffer section 12, a command processing section 13, a page buffer section 14, a page buffer control table section 17, and a print processing section 15.

In this embodiment, the page buffer section 14 is configured as a collection of page buffers for three pages of paper, and the page buffer control table section (hereinafter abbreviated as PCT) 1
7 is provided, and the PCT 17 is used to control writing to the three-sided page buffer section 14 by the command processing section 13 and reading from the three-sided page buffer section 14 by the print processing section 15.

The command processing unit 13 includes a command interpretation unit 131,
A print control command processing section 132 and a drawing command processing section 133 are provided.

Each of the above units is configured using a microprocessor, RAM, ROM, logic IC, and the like.

In FIG. 1, print data transmitted by a host computer 10 is received by a reception processing section 11 and stored in a reception buffer section 12. The print data in the reception buffer section 12 is read out by the command processing section 13,
Interpreted and executed.

In the command processing unit 13, the command is first interpreted by the command interpretation unit 131, and if the command belongs to a drawing command, the drawing command processing unit 133 is activated, and the command is expanded and drawn in one of the page buffers 141 to 143. Processing is performed. Through this expansion and drawing processing, characters, figures,
An image output command is output as a dot pattern on the page buffer. On the other hand, if the command interpreted by the command interpretation unit 131 belongs to a print control command, the print control command processing unit 132 performs processing such as specifying a paper feed section and a paper discharge section, and issuing a print start command. .

Here, the drawing command is a command for instructing the contents of text, image, and graphics data delimited by print control commands (page break commands) to be developed and drawn in one page buffer.

Additionally, print control commands are used to separate pages.

This is a command for instructing control independent of development and drawing within a page, such as specifying the printer engine paper feed section and paper ejection section.

In the print processing unit 15, according to the print start command,
Read dot pattern data from any of the page buffers 141 to 143 that have been drawn,
After parallel-to-serial conversion, the printer engine section 16
output as a video signal to

The page buffer control is used to select which of the page buffers for three pages should be processed by the drawing command processing unit 133 and which of the page buffers for three pages should be processed by the print processing unit 15. This is done using the table section 17.

Next, the PCT 17 will be explained with reference to FIG.

P CT 17 is fl *f as shown in Figure 5 (,)
It consists of a set of three values: 2 * f3. fi(i=1.2
．． 3) are flags each indicating the state of the first side page buffer. fi is the four values (''
"Ready to draw", "Drawing 1", "Ready to print", "Start printing 1"
"Printing"), and the values change in the order shown in the state transition diagram of FIG. 5(c). Note that in this embodiment, i is set to 1≦positive≦3.

Also, 'l'l'! In +fm, this table is operated so that only one "Drawing in progress" and one "Printing in progress" occur at the same time.

That is, '1 e'! If any of +f8 is "during one drawing", the other fs are set so that they are not in the same state. This can be achieved by appropriately selecting the phase of state transition for fl m'*P'S.

Next, P A D (Problem Ana
The processing procedure will be explained using lysis dia-gram.

First, initialization 61 is performed, and after checking the hardware (RAM, ROM, various Li9I, etc.) that constitutes this device, various parameters are initialized.After initialization, event processing 62 is performed. Two types of command processing 63 are repeated indefinitely.

In the event processing 62, reception processing from the host computer, various abnormality processing, etc. are performed if necessary. The abnormal processing includes those related to the printer engine section 16, those related to communication processing with the host computer 10, and those related to the command processing (13, 63).

The necessity of processing is determined using flags as follows.

(1) A flag for recording event occurrence (hereinafter referred to as event flag) is set in advance at the time of occurrence of an event in interrupt processing such as host computer data reception interrupt 67 or command processing 641, 642.

(II) In event processing, the event flag is checked, and if the flag is set, corresponding processing (the reception processing, abnormality processing, etc.) is performed. When processing is complete, reset the corresponding event flag.

In the command processing 63, it is determined whether or not the reception buffer section is empty (631), and if it is empty, the command processing 63 is ended. On the other hand, if it is not empty, the drawing conditions are determined using the PCT 17 (632). If it is determined by PCT 17 that drawing is in progress (if there is a fl with fi="drawing" in PCT), command interpretation 64 is performed with the first page buffer as the drawing target (632-
a). If it is determined that drawing is possible according to PCT 17 (there is no fi with fi = 6 drawing in progress in PCT, and fi
= 9 (if there is at least one fi that can be drawn)
, selects one page buffer on the first side that can be drawn, changes its flag fi from "1 drawing possible" to "drawing in progress", and then performs command interpretation 64 (632-b).PCT
17, if it is determined that printing is possible (if there is a fi such as t,=*printable" in the PCT), print processing 66 is performed on the first side page buffer (632).
-c). Otherwise, do nothing (632-d
).

In command interpretation, the content of the command is interpreted, and if it is a print control command, print control command processing is performed, and if it is a drawing command, drawing command processing 642 is performed. In the print control command processing 641, depending on the content of the command, page break command processing 641-a, paper feed section specification command processing 641-b, 1 paper discharge section specification command processing 64
Processes such as 1-c are performed. Among these, the page break command processing 641-a finds a - plane with fi="drawing" in the PCT, changes its value to "1 printable" (65), and then starts the print processing 66.

Note that up to three 'printable' sides can occur at the same time, so number them (priority) in the order of occurrence and write them in fi.For example, fi should be 2 bytes, and the top 1 byte should contain the priority. Input, one drawing can be done in the lower 1 byte'''% 1
Five values are expressed: ``Drawing in progress'', ``Ready to print'', ``Printing started'', and ``Printing in progress''.

Further, the selection results of the paper feed section and the paper discharge section by the command processing 64i-b and 641-c are set in a table provided in the print processing section 15 called a printer engine control table.

In the printing process 66, printing conditions are first determined by referring to the PCT 17 (661). Printing conditions are P CT
There is at least one tC "printable" side in 17,
In addition, when the conditions for issuing a print start command are satisfied, it is determined that printing is possible.

Here, the conditions for issuing the print start command are: - The printer engine unit 16 must satisfy the following conditions after issuing the print start command for printing the previous page data and until issuing the same command for printing the next page data. This refers to the conditions under which it does not occur. Specific examples include (+) raising the print start command signal (PRRBQ) once after the fall of the vertical synchronization signal (V8YNC), and (It) instructing the selection of the paper feed section and paper ejection section in the printer engine section. After that, you have to wait a certain amount of time, etc.

If the above printing conditions are satisfied, printer engine section 1
6 is normal (662). If normal, find the page with the highest priority of "fi = 1 printable" from the PCT 17, change its value to "start printing", and then start print start 664 for that side. do.

In the print start 664, the printer engine unit 16
After issuing a paper feed section selection command and a paper discharge section selection command with reference to the printer engine control table (664-a),
A print start command is issued (664-b).

As a result, the printer engine unit 16 is activated, and in response to the wake-up from the printer engine unit 16, the print processing unit 15 rewrites the 1 printing start flag to the 1 print A flag, and then rewrites the 1 print in progress flag. The video signal is read from the attached page buffer and sent to the printer engine section 16.
(664-C).

Here, in the process of 664-a above, if the paper feed section or the paper discharge section is not changed, the instruction for specifying it can be omitted.

In addition to the above processing procedure, interrupt processing 67°68
etc. Among these, the interrupt 68 is generated at the time when reading of data for one page from the page buffer to the printer engine section 16 is completed.

In this case (68), the PC corresponding to the page buffer
The flag on T17 is changed from "1 printing in progress" to "6 drawings possible" (681). As soon as the page buffer becomes empty by this interrupt 68, the flag value of that number is immediately rewritten to enable drawing. Therefore, it is possible to control drawing so that it uses the page buffer without idle time.

In addition, in the interrupt 69, the printer control unit in the print processing unit 15 monitors whether the conditions for issuing a print start command change from unfulfilled to established, and when this change occurs, the print processing
I started up 6. With this interrupt 69, if there is a "printable" page buffer, a print start command can be issued.
In other words, the print start command is immediately issued as soon as the printer engine becomes available. Therefore, the printer engine section can be used without idle time.

By utilizing PCT as described above, it is possible to realize parallel processing of printing and drawing using a three-sided page buffer.

In the above embodiment, there is also an implementation method in which the print control command processing section 132 and the drawing command processing section 133 are integrated into a command execution section, and the commands are not classified into print control commands and drawing commands. in this case,
Each command selected by the command interpreter 131 is directly executed by a corresponding execution module for each command in the command execution unit.

It is also possible to manage the selection of surfaces for drawing and printing using the following four pointers, and perform drawing and printing sequentially on each of the surfaces 1-Na3.

Here, the surfaces numbered 1 to N113 are page buffers 141 to 141.
It corresponds to 143 faces. The pointers include (1) the area currently being drawn, (1) the last area that can be drawn, (Il+
) Currently printing page, (lvl last printable page,
Prepare. At this time, the number of men is managed so that it returns to 1 when the total number of times exceeds 3.

Further, even when the number of page buffers is four or more, the present invention can be realized with the same configuration and operating procedure as shown in the embodiment. Also, by combining the "1 printing start" flag and the "printing in progress" flag, a new flag "1 printing in progress" is established, and instead of using "1 print start" and "1 printing in progress", only "1 print in progress" is set. When used, it can be realized using the same concept.

The effects of this embodiment can be summarized as follows.

fil Tdmax = Tp. In other words, the maximum time 'rp allowed for drawing under the condition that the printer engine section is operated at the maximum process speed was determined.

+21 In addition to achieving +11, the print start command was not issued before the drawing was completed. Therefore, the above-mentioned extra light fatigue on the photoreceptor and extra printing errors could be avoided.

(By performing control using 31PCT, drawing and printing can be performed in parallel on a three-sided page buffer.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, the maximum drawing time allowed under the condition that the printer engine section is operated at the maximum process speed'
pdmax can be set as the printing time Tp of the printer engine section, which is an upper limit value.

Therefore, the drawing time Td of the printing control device is the printing time 'rp
If it is below, there is an effect that the printer engine section can be operated at the maximum process speed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is a block diagram showing the configuration of a conventional printing control device.
FIG. 4 is a time chart showing the drawing and printing procedures in a conventional print control device, FIG. 4 is a time chart showing the drawing and printing procedures in the embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
) * (b) # (c) is an explanatory diagram showing the contents of the page buffer control table section used in the embodiment of the present invention,
FIGS. 6(a) to 6(g) are explanatory diagrams for explaining the operating procedure of the embodiment of the present invention. 10... Host computer 11... Reception processing section 12... Reception buffer section 13... Command processing section 14... Page buffer section 15... Print processing section 16... Printer engine section 17. ...Page buffer control table section 131...Command interpretation section 132...Print control command processing section 133...Drawing command processing section 141...Page buffer 1 142...Page buffer 2 143...Page Buffer 3 Ginna Peconi 0

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A receiving unit that receives print data consisting of a string of character codes and commands; a command processing unit that interprets the print data and develops and draws it into a dot pattern; In a print control device that has a page buffer unit that stores print data stored in the page buffer unit, and a print processing unit that reads out the print data stored in the page buffer unit and outputs it to a printer engine unit, the page buffer unit is connected to the page buffer unit. It is provided as a collection of at least three paper pages, and is connected to the command processing section and the print processing section, and is capable of selecting which of the plurality of page buffers to store the print data in, and from which of the plurality of page buffers the print data is to be stored. 1. A print control device comprising a page buffer control table unit storing control information for determining whether to read the page. 2. The page buffer control table section stores the states of "drawable", "drawing", "printable", "printing start", and "printing in progress" as control information for each page in the page buffer section. In addition to setting sequentially, “Drawing” and “
2. The printing control device according to claim 1, wherein a table is provided so that "printing in progress" is not set more than a certain number at the same time.