JPH02151459A - Recording apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the load of a CPU by employing constitution provided with an image data processing means for extending the image data compressed by a predetermined image data compression means to the original image data. CONSTITUTION:The control system of a printer is constituted of a CPU 11, an ROM 12 and an RAM 13 and a printing mechanism part 15 performing recording is connected to the CPU 11 through an input/output port. The control circuit of the printer is connected to the control circuit of a personal computer main body through a circuit 14. At the time of facsimile transmission, the image data of a transmitted manuscript is read by an image scanner under the control of the CPU 1 of the personal computer main body and encoded by the CPU 1 to be compressed and subsequently modulated to an image signal according to a predetermined modulation system in a modem 7 while the image signal is sent to a telephone circuit 9. At the time of facsimile reception, an image signal is received from the telephone circuit 9 through an NCU 8 and demodulated according to the demodulation system corresponding to the modulation system by the modem 7. By this method, since it is unnecessary to perform the extension of image data on the side of the computer main body, the processing load of the CPU can be reduced.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a recording device, and particularly to a recording device used as an output device of a computer system.

[Prior Art] In recent years, configurations have been developed in which a facsimile communication function can be added as an option to a personal computer (hereinafter abbreviated as personal computer) system. For example, in a personal computer system equipped with such a facsimile communication function, Recommendation T3 of CCITT (International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee) is recommended.
Facsimile communication is performed in accordance with the G3 facsimile transmission procedure defined by G3 facsimile transmission procedure. When transmitting image data, an image scanner connected to the computer reads the image data of the original to be sent, encodes and compresses the image data using, for example, the Modified Huffman method or Modified Read method, and converts the image data using a modem attached to the computer. The data signal is modulated using a predetermined method and sent to the telephone line. When receiving data, the image signal received from the telephone line is demodulated into an image data signal by a modem, and the image data compressed using the above encoding method is decoded to expand it to the original image data, and then sent to a printer connected to the computer. output and record it.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the above-mentioned personal computer system, when receiving a facsimile, the personal computer itself performs everything from receiving image data to decompressing the image data, so the CPU (central processing unit) of the personal computer that performs the processing is required. It is a heavy burden and takes a long time to process. In addition, since the image data is output to the printer using the expanded original image data, the amount of data is large, the transmission efficiency is poor, and the data transmission takes a long time. For this reason, when a personal computer system processes facsimile reception and other tasks simultaneously, for example, while working as a word processor, there is a risk that the processing time of the computer's CPU may become insufficient. was there.

An object of the present invention is to provide a recording device that can solve these problems.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the present invention, in a recording device used as an output device of a computer system, image data compressed by a predetermined image data compression method is converted into an original image. We adopted a configuration that includes an image data processing means that decompresses the data.

[Operation] When recording and outputting compressed image data in a computer system using a recording device configured as described above, the computer main body only needs to output the compressed image data as is to the recording device. , the recording device receives and expands the received image data into the original image data using the above-mentioned image data processing means, and records and outputs it.There is no need to decompress the image data on the computer main body side, and the CPU of the computer main body The burden of processing can be reduced and the efficiency of its use can be improved.

[Embodiments] Details of embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the attached drawings.

Here, a printer used as a recording output device of a personal computer system equipped with a facsimile communication function will be exemplified as an example.

FIGS. 1 and 2 each schematically show the configuration of a printer according to this embodiment and a personal computer to which it is connected. First, the configuration of the computer itself will be explained.

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 1 denotes a CPU composed of a microprocessor element which is the main body of various arithmetic processing and data processing in a personal computer.

The following components indicated by reference numerals 2 to 8 are connected to the CPU 1 and are controlled by the CPU I.

Reference numerals 2 and 3 denote memories such as ROM (read only memory) and RAM (random access memory), respectively, and ROM 2 stores the operating system, etc. from a magnetic disk device (not shown) connected to the computer when the computer is started. Necessary fixed data such as an initial program loader for loading a control program into the RAM 3 is stored. The RAM 3 is used for storing data such as the aforementioned operating system and application programs, and as a working area. R
It is assumed that the control program stored in AM3 includes a program for performing facsimile communication.

Next, reference numeral 4 is a display section for displaying various processing information of the personal computer, and is composed of a CRT or a liquid crystal display device.

Reference numeral 5 designates a keyboard for inputting various operations to the main body of the personal computer.

Next, reference numeral 6 denotes a printer-in and turf-ace circuit for connecting the printer shown in FIG. 1, which is composed of input/output board elements and the like.

Next, reference numeral 7 is a modem that modulates and demodulates image signals during facsimile communication. This modem 7 is, for example, CCI T
It is assumed that the modem is a G3 modem that performs modulation using a modulation method specified in Recommendations V21 to V27ter of T.T., and demodulation corresponding to the modulation method.

Next, reference numeral 8 is an NCU (network control unit) that performs various controls related to the connection between the telephone line 9 and the personal computer, which are necessary for performing facsimile communication via the telephone line 9. A telephone 10 is connected to the NCU 3 in order to make a telephone conversation with a communication partner or for manual connection control.

The blink shown in FIG. 1 is connected via the printer interface circuit 6 to the personal computer body constructed as described above. Also connected is an image scanner (not shown) for reading an image of a transmitted document during facsimile transmission. Furthermore, the aforementioned magnetic disk device (not shown) and the like are also connected.

Next, the configuration of the control system of the printer shown in FIG. 1 will be explained.

The control system of the printer shown in FIG. 1 includes a CPU 11 consisting of a microprocessor element which is the main body of control, a ROM 12 that stores fixed data such as control programs,
The print mechanism section 15, which performs recording, is connected to the CP via a human output port (not shown).
Connected to and controlled by UII. It is assumed that the printing mechanism section 15 is capable of recording an image in a dot matrix pattern using, for example, a thermal method. The control circuit of the printer is connected to the control circuit of the personal computer shown in FIG. 2 via a personal computer interface circuit 14 provided therein.

By the way, the configuration of the above-mentioned printer differs from the conventional one in that the CPU II is capable of performing IA embedding that expands image data compressed by facsimile communication into original image data (hereinafter referred to as raw data). Here, 1. For example, it is possible to perform a process of decompressing image data compressed into raw data using the Modified Huffman method or Modified Read method encoding method specified as the encoding method for G3 facsimile machines by CCITT Recommendation T4. . For this purpose, C is stored in ROM12.
It is assumed that the PUII control program includes a program for performing the above decompression processing.

Next, a facsimile communication operation in a personal computer system in which the printer of this embodiment is connected to the personal computer shown in FIG. 2 will be explained. Note that this personal computer system complies with the G standard specified by CCITT recommendation T30, for example.
3. It is assumed that facsimile communication is performed using the facsimile transmission procedure.

First, when sending a facsimile, the image data of the transmitted document is read by an image scanner (not shown) under the control of the CPU of the personal computer, and the image data is compressed by the CPU, for example, by encoding using the Modified Huffman method or the Modified Read method. The image signal is modulated into an image signal by the modem 7 using a predetermined modulation method as described above, and sent to the telephone line 9 via the NCU 3.

On the other hand, when receiving a facsimile, image number 42 is received from the telephone line 9 via the NCU 3, and the image signal is demodulated by the modem 7 using a demodulation method corresponding to the above-mentioned modulation method. Here, as a result of demodulation, it is assumed that received image data compressed by, for example, the above-mentioned modified Huffman method or modified read method is obtained, and unlike the conventional method, the cput outputs this as it is to the printer without decompressing it.

FIG. 3 shows the processing procedure of the CPU when receiving such a facsimile. When receiving a facsimile, as shown in FIG.
Performs pre-procedure processing of the protocol in compliance with CITT Recommendation T30.

Next, when one line of compressed image data is received in step S2, the one line of data is directly sent to the printer in step S3. Then, in step S4, it is determined whether or not the reception of all image data has been completed. If not, the process returns to step S2 and the loop of steps 82 to S4 is repeated.

By repeating this process, the sequentially received compressed image data is output to the printer line by line.

When the transmission of all image data is completed, post-procedure processing is performed in step S5, and the line is disconnected to end the processing.

On the other hand, on the printer side, compressed image data is sequentially received one line at a time from the personal computer main body side via the personal computer interface 14, and the compressed image data is sequentially expanded into raw data and recorded by the print mechanism section 15. The processing procedure of the CPU II of the printer at that time is shown in FIG.

That is, in recording and outputting the facsimile reception, the CPU II of the printer first receives one line of compressed image data in step S6, and then in step S7
Expand compressed image data for lines into raw data. Then, in step S8, the raw data for one line is outputted to the print mechanism section 15 to print one line.

Next, in step S9, it is checked whether recording and outputting of all received image data has been completed, and if it has not been completed, step S6
Returning to step S6, the loop from step S6 to step S39 is repeated, whereby the received image data is sequentially recorded and output one line at a time. Then, when all the image data has been recorded and output, the process ends.

As described above, since the printer of this embodiment also decompresses the compressed image data when recording and outputting facsimile reception, the CPU on the PC main body side does not need to perform decompression processing, and the received compressed image data can be directly printed by the printer. The image data can be transmitted efficiently and at high speed, and the processing load on the CPU is greatly reduced.

This allows the CPU to perform facsimile reception and other tasks at the same time, such as processing as a word processor, with sufficient margin while receiving facsimile reception.

In addition, not only when receiving facsimiles, but when processing image data on a personal computer system, by processing the image data as compressed image data within the personal computer itself, the efficiency of memory capacity usage when storing compressed image data is improved. can. When the compressed image data is to be recorded and output, the image data may be decompressed by a printer and then recorded and output in the same manner as described above. In this case, the image data compression method is not limited to the methods used for facsimile communication, such as the Modified Huffman method and Modified Read method mentioned above, but the image data decompression method used by the printer must also be compatible with the method used for facsimile communication. Of course, the method is not limited to the method used in .

The printer of this embodiment described above has an operation mode in which compressed image data is expanded and recorded and output as described above, and an operation mode in which normal image data or recording data is recorded and output as is without performing expansion processing. Of course, the configuration can be such that the normal recording mode can be selected and executed.

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, in a recording device used as an output device of a computer system, image data compressed using a predetermined image data compression method can be decompressed into original image data. Since the configuration is equipped with an image data processing means, when compressed image data is processed in a computer system using this recording device, the load on the CPU of the computer involved in processing the image data can be significantly reduced. , the CPU can process other tasks concurrently while processing image data, and when storing image data in the computer itself, the memory capacity can be reduced by compressing the image data and storing it. Excellent effects such as efficient use can be obtained.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of a control system of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a configuration of a personal computer having a facsimile communication function to which the printer shown in FIG. 1 is connected. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the control procedure when receiving a facsimile by the CPU of the personal computer shown in FIG. 2, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the control procedure when the CPU of the printer shown in FIG. It is a flowchart figure which shows. 1.11...CPU 2,12...ROM3.
13...RAM 4...Display section 5...Keyboard 6...Printer interface circuit 7...Modem 8...NCU9...Telephone line 1
0...Telephone 14...PC interface circuit 15...Print mechanism section -, -S

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1) A recording device used as an output device of a computer system, characterized in that the recording device is provided with an image data processing means for decompressing image data compressed by a predetermined image data compression method into original image data.