JPH0129713B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] The present invention provides an ID mark write command in response to an ID mark write command.
Relating to a printer system that is configured to both print a mark and read the ID mark in response to an ID mark reading command, in which the ID mark can be overprinted if the printed ID mark is too light. It is.

Figure 1 is a front view of the dot printer mechanism, Figure 2 is a diagram showing the ID mark part of the ledger, and Figure 3 is a front view of the dot printer mechanism.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a dot pattern of an ID mark.

In Figures 1 and 2, 1 is a print carrier, 2 is a needle print head, 3 is an ID sensor,
4 is an ink ribbon cassette, 5 is a machine frame, 6 is an upper carrier support shaft, 7 is a lower carrier support shaft, 8
is a timing fence, 9 is a timing belt connected to carrier 1, 10 is an ink ribbon, 11 is a ledger, 12 is a timing fence sensor, 13 is a timing belt pulley, A is a
The positions where ID marks are written are shown.

The print carrier 1 includes a needle print head 2,
It supports the ID sensor 3, ink ribbon cassette 4, and timing fence sensor 12, and moves left and right as the timing belt 9 rotates. Although not shown, the needle printing head 2 has seven printing pins arranged vertically and a printing pin driving magnet, and when the printing pin driving magnet is excited, the corresponding printing pin is activated. It is ejected and printed. ID sensor 3 is
It is a reflective mark sensor, and is used to follow the ID mark (identification mark) printed on the ledger 11. Ink ribbon cassette 4 is
This is for rotating the ink ribbon 10 constituting the Medius ring. The timing fence sensor 12 sequentially reads the striped pattern on the timing fence 8 as the carrier 1 travels. The output signal from the timing fence sensor 12 is used as a print timing signal.
The timing fence 8 is a piece of transparent plastic having a plurality of black lines printed at unit intervals.

Figure 2 shows the ID mark section of the ledger.
ID mark part is start mark, ID data high side,
Consists of ID data low side, parity data and end mark. As shown in FIG. 3, one ID mark is composed of 5×7 dots. Needless to say, the ID mark string is for identifying the ledger, and the ID mark is printed at ID mark writing position A. The ID data high side entry area, ID data low side entry area, and parity data entry area each have eight ID mark entry positions A. If the ID mark is printed only in either the i-th ID mark entry position A in the ID data high side entry area or the i-th ID mark entry position A in the ID data low side entry area,
The i-th ID mark entry position A in the parity data entry area is left blank; in other cases, an ID mark is printed at the i-th ID mark entry position A in the parity data entry area. Ru.

Although only the ID mark is shown in Figure 2,
The code number, address, customer name, transaction data, etc. of the ledger owner are printed on the ledger. When posting new transaction data to the ledger, the ID mark column is
It is read by ID sensor 3 and sent to the host computer. The host computer extracts unrecorded transaction data from the file among the transaction data specified by the ID mark, and transfers this unrecorded data and various control information to the printer system. Upon receiving the above unrecorded transaction data and various control information, the printer system prints the unrecorded transaction data in a specified manner.

By the way, the ink density of the ink ribbon 10 decreases each time printing is performed, and the ink ribbon 10 becomes thinner.
Marks and characters printed with will fade. Since the characters on the ledger 11 are read by humans, it is possible to read the contents accurately even if the characters are printed a little thinly, but the ID mark string is read by machines, so the ID
If the marks become too thin, machines will misread the ID mark row. For example, in the case of character printing,
Even if you use an ink ribbon that has printed about 1 million characters,
Humans can read printed content accurately, but
In the case of printing an ID mark once, if an ink ribbon with approximately 300,000 characters printed is used, the rate of misreading by the machine increases significantly. Also, the ID printed on the ledger
Since the density of the mark also decreases as time passes, the density of the ID mark must be made sufficiently large when writing the ID mark.

The present invention is based on the above considerations, and includes:
The purpose of the present invention is to provide a printer system that can always print an ID mark with a guaranteed density even when using an ink ribbon with a low ink density. And for that reason, the printer of the present invention
The system is a printer system consisting of a printer and a host device, and the printer includes a printer mechanism section that prints using an ink ribbon, a reading section that includes a photoelectric sensor and a binarization circuit, and a reading section that includes a photoelectric sensor and a binarization circuit. It has a read data buffer that stores the binary signal output from the unit, and a processing device that executes processing according to the command sent from the host device. When performing (a) processing for printing identification data consisting of a plurality of black rectangular marks, and (b) reading all the printed marks by the reading section and outputting them from the reading section. (c) processing to sample the binarized signal in synchronization with a predetermined timing signal and store the sampled binarized signal in the read data buffer; A process of extracting identification data from the read data buffer in accordance with a mark judgment criterion that states that a mark is correctly printed in a corresponding area on a printing paper when a specified number or more of black dot information is aggregated as one; , (d) processing to check the extracted identification data for errors, and (e) processing to notify the higher-level device of the occurrence of the error if an error is detected, and the higher-level device The apparatus is characterized in that it is configured to instruct a retry when an error occurrence notification is received after issuing an identification mark write command. Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an example of the system configuration of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the relationship between mark density and ID sensor amplifier output when reading an ID mark.
FIG. 6 is a diagram explaining sampling of the ID sensor amplifier when reading an ID mark, FIG. 7 is a diagram showing mark information in the read data buffer,
FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating the operation when the ID mark write command is executed, and FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating the operation when the ID mark read command is executed.

In Figure 4, 14 is the main control circuit, 15 is a microprocessor, 16 is a memory consisting of ROM and RAM, 17 is a shared RAM, 18 is an IO port, 19 is a print head driver, and 20 is a carrier motor driver. , 21 is a carrier motor, 22 is a timing sensor amplifier, and 23 is a carrier motor.
ID sensor amplifier, TH indicates the output of the timing sensor amplifier 22, and MKPH indicates the output of the ID sensor amplifier 23, respectively. In addition, as in Fig. 1, 2 is a needle print head, 3 is an ID sensor,
12 is a timing fence sensor.

The main control circuit 14 generates various control signals and various clock signals based on control information sent from the host computer, and supplies these signals to the microprocessor 15. The memory 16 stores microprograms, regular programs, and character dot patterns (ID mark dots).
(including patterns) are stored. share
The RAM 17 not only stores control data, print data, etc. from the host computer, but also stores various data to be sent to the host computer. IO port 18 is microprocessor 15
The operation of giving control signals to the device according to the address and data sent from the dot.
Operation of providing pattern data to needle print head 2, output of timing sensor amplifier 22
Operation of transferring TH to microprocessor 15,
It also performs operations such as transferring the output MKPH of the ID amplifier 23 to the microprocessor 15.

Next, an overview of the operation of the system shown in FIG. 4 will be explained. When the host computer transfers data,
Control information is given to the main control circuit 14 via the interface and shared by the microprocessor 15.
Accessing RAM17 is prohibited. Thereafter, the address, data, etc. are transferred, and the data is stored in the shared RAM 17. Next, when a shared RAM access prohibition release signal is sent from the host computer, the microprocessor 15
Access the RAM 17 and read the sent data. When instructing to write an ID mark, the host computer issues an ID mark write command and
When transferring ID data and commanding reading of the ID mark, the host computer sends an ID mark reading command, and when commanding printing, the host computer sends a print command and print data. The memory 16 is prepared with microprograms corresponding to each of the various commands.
A microprogram corresponding to the received command is executed. When the ID mark write command is executed, parity data is created based on the ID mark, and then a start mark, ID data (ID mark string), and end mark are printed. After the above mark printing is completed, the marks printed on the ledger 11 are read and a predetermined check is performed. When executing the ID mark reading command, the start mark, ID data, parity data and end mark of the ledger 11 are similarly read and a predetermined check is performed.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating the relationship between mark density and ID sensor amplifier output MKPH when reading an ID mark. In FIG. 5, A shows the output of the ID sensor 3 when the ID mark is dark, and B shows the output of the ID sensor 3 when the ID mark is light. The output of the ID sensor 3 is input to the ID sensor amplifier 23. The ID sensor amplifier 23 is a slicer amplifier, and has a portion above the slice level as a high level, and a portion below the slice level as a low level. As can be seen from Figure 5, when the ID mark is dark, the width of the signal MKPH is large, and when the ID mark is thin, the width of the signal MKPH is large.
The width of MKPH becomes smaller. Therefore, the signal
By measuring the length at which MKPH is at a high level, the density of the ID mark can be determined.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating sampling of the ID sensor amplifier output MKPH when reading the ID mark. A plurality of black lines are printed on the timing fence 8 as shown in the figure. When the timing fence sensor 12 moves over the timing fence 8, it outputs a signal according to the pattern of the timing fence 8, and this output signal is
It is input to the sensor amplifier 22. The timing sensor amplifier 22 shapes the input signal into a waveform and outputs a rectangular signal TH as shown. The output signal MKPH of the ID sensor amplifier 22 is sampled at the rising and falling points of the signal TH, and the sampled values are written to the read data buffer in the shared PAM 17. In addition, in Figure 6, the black circle "〓"
indicates a sample value of logic "1", and a white circle "O" indicates a sample value of logic "0".

FIG. 7 shows the mark information written into the read data buffer, ie, the sampled MKPH signal. In FIG. 7, B indicates a read data buffer, STM indicates a start mark on the ledger, and IDM indicates an ID mark on the ledger. When determining the ID mark, when the start mark STM is read, the start mark position in the read data buffer B is immediately determined.
In the illustrated example, addresses #23 to #25 are the start mark storage area, and the start address is address #23. After the start mark is determined, the address is updated in 3-byte units, and it is determined whether there are more than a specified number of consecutive logical ``1'' bits in the 3-byte ID mark area, and the logical ``1'' bit is determined. If there are more than a specified number of consecutive bits of 1,
It is determined that there is a mark.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating the operation when executing the ID mark write command. As mentioned earlier, data from the host computer is stored in the shared RAM 17. After storage is complete,
The microprocessor 15 creates parity from the ID data. After creating the parity, the needle print head 2 and the carrier motor 21 are put into operation, and then the start mark, ID mark row,
Parity data and an end mark dot pattern are sequentially supplied to the needle print head 2 in synchronization with the rising edge of the signal TH. After mark printing is completed, carrier 1 is returned to the home position, the printed mark is then read, and the values of signal MKPH at the rising and falling points of signal TH are sequentially stored in the read data buffer. Ru. After the printed mark has been read, the contents of the read data buffer are read out.
It is checked whether a start mark and an end mark exist in the first predetermined storage area and the second predetermined storage area, respectively. Note that the start mark printing position and the end mark printing position on the ledger 11 are fixedly determined in advance. If the start mark and end mark exist in the read data buffer, ID data and parity data are extracted from the read data buffer according to mark judgment criterion A.
Data is extracted and a match between the extracted ID data and parity data is checked. Mark judgment criterion A is a criterion for determining that a mark exists when 11 consecutive bits of logic "1" exist in the 3-byte ID mark area in the data buffer. If the ID data from the read data buffer and the parity data match, the ID data from the read data buffer and the ID data sent from the host are compared, and if they match, the parity data is , considered to be a normal termination. If the start mark and end mark are not detected in the read data buffer, if the ID data from the read data buffer does not match the parity data, or if the ID data from the read data buffer and the received If the ID data does not match, the host computer is notified of the occurrence of an error. When notified of the occurrence of an error, the host computer stores the ID mark write command and the same ID data in the shared RAM 17 and instructs a retry. The above retry is performed up to eight times. 8
If an error is still detected even after multiple retries, the process is considered to have terminated abnormally.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating the operation when executing the ID mark reading command. When mark reading starts, the value of signal MKPH at the rising and falling points of signal TH is stored in the shared RAM.
The data is stored in the read data buffer in 17. Next, it is checked whether a start mark and an end mark exist in the first predetermined storage area and the second predetermined storage area in the read data buffer, respectively. If a start mark and an end mark are detected in the read data buffer, ID data and parity are extracted from the contents of the read data buffer according to mark judgment criterion B.
The data is extracted and checked to see if they match correctly. Mark determination criterion B is a criterion for determining that a mark is present if seven or more successive logical "1" bits exist in the 3-byte ID mark area in the data buffer. If the two match correctly, this ID data is sent to the host computer. If the start mark and end mark do not exist in the read data buffer, or the ID from the read data buffer
If the data and parity data do not match correctly, the host computer is notified of the occurrence of an error. When notified of the occurrence of an error, the host computer issues the ID mark reading command again to instruct a retry. Retries are performed up to 8 times. If an error is still detected after eight retries, the error is terminated.

As is clear from the above description, the printer system of the present invention reads the printed ID mark after printing the ID mark, and determines that there is no mark if the printed ID mark is lighter than a predetermined density.
Since the same ID mark is printed overlappingly, it is possible to print an ID mark with a predetermined density even if an ink ribbon with a low density is used.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a front view of the dot printer, Figure 2 is a diagram showing the ID mark part of the ledger, Figure 3 is a diagram showing the dot pattern of the ID mark, and Figure 4 is one of the configurations of the system of the present invention. The example block diagram, Figure 5, is
A diagram showing the relationship between mark shading and ID sensor amplifier output when reading an ID mark, Figure 6 is a diagram explaining sampling of the ID sensor amplifier output when continuing to read an ID mark, and Figure 7 is a diagram showing marks in the data buffer. FIG. 8 is a flowchart explaining the operation when executing the ID mark write command, and FIG. 9 is a flowchart explaining the operation when executing the ID mark reading command. 1... Print carrier, 2... Needle print head, 3... ID sensor, 4... Ink ribbon cassette, 5... Machine frame, 6... Upper carrier support shaft, 7... Lower carrier support shaft, 8 ...Timing fence, 9...Timing belt connected to carrier 1, 10...Ink ribbon, 11
... Ledger, 12 ... Timing fence sensor, 13 ... Timing belt pulley, 14
...Main control circuit, 15...Microprocessor,
16...Memory consisting of ROM and RAM, 1
7...Shared RAM, 18...IO port, 19...
Print head driver, 20... Carrier motor driver, 21... Carrier motor, 22
...Timing sensor amplifier, 23...ID sensor amplifier, TH...Output of timing sensor amplifier 22, MKPH...Output of ID sensor amplifier 23.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A printer consisting of a printer and a host device.
The system includes a printer mechanism unit that prints using an ink ribbon, a reading unit including a photoelectric sensor and a binarization circuit, and a binarization signal output from the reading unit. It has a read data buffer and a processing device that executes processing according to commands sent from the host device, and when the processing device executes the identification mark book-specific command, (a) a black rectangular mark (b) reading all the printed marks by the reading section and synchronizing the binarized signal output from the reading section with a predetermined timing signal; (c) a process of sampling the sampled binary signal and storing the sampled binary signal in the read data buffer; (d) extracting identification data from the read data buffer according to a mark judgment criterion that indicates that the mark has been correctly printed in the corresponding area on the printing paper; and (d) detecting errors in the extracted identification data. and (e) processing to notify the higher-level device of the occurrence of an error if an error is detected. A printer system characterized in that the printer system is configured to instruct a retry upon receiving an occurrence notification.