JPH0229356A - Printing controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable high-speed printing without increasing the capacity of a power supply for a printing head by checking whether the number of printing dots in printing data relevant to each block is more than the number of dots capable of being simultaneously printed, based on an output from a storage means, outputting collectively the printing data to a printing means, and printing simultaneously the data relevant to a plurality of blocks. CONSTITUTION:A CPU 12 temporarily stores printing data in a storage region A of a RAM 13, and outputs the data to a dot number counter 14. The counter 14 counts the number of printing dots on the basis of each predetermined block of the printing data, and an indication of whether the counted number of dots is more than 64 dots is stored in flag registers (a), (b) or the like corresponding to each block. The CPU 12 converts the printing data stored in the storage region A of the RAM 13 into serial output data to be outputted to a video interface circuit 15, and transfers the serial output data into a storage region B of the RAM 13. Under the control of the CPU 12, the data stored in the region B is transferred to the video interface circuit 15 in units of basic blocks A, B or the like according to the contents of the flag registers for the counter 14, and is printed by a printing head part 16.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary] Printing Control II for a Printer that Prints Multiple Dots Simultaneously
Regarding the device, the purpose is to enable faster printing with a small power supply capacity, and it is equipped with a memory that stores input print data and a system that counts the number of printed dots in each program or block combination of the print data. a counting means, a memory means for storing that the number of printed dots in each block or a combination of blocks does not exceed the number of dots that can be printed simultaneously, a printing means comprising a plurality of print heads, and an output of the memory means. and a data control means for outputting a predetermined number of blocks of print data in the memory together to the printing means in accordance with the above.

[Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to a print control device for a printer that prints multiple dots simultaneously.

[Conventional technology]

Line printers have multiple print heads and print multiple dots by driving them simultaneously.
The power supply supplied to the print heads requires a current capacity corresponding to the number of print heads that can be driven simultaneously. Therefore, in an attempt to increase the printing speed, the number of dots printed simultaneously (the more dots are printed at the same time, the greater the need for a power supply with a larger current capacity. If the current required is
In order to print 256 dots at the same time, the head power supply requires a current capacity of about 1 OA.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

As described above, in conventional printers, when the number of printed dots is increased in order to print at a higher speed, a power source with a large current capacity is required, resulting in an increase in the size of the device.

By the way, in the above-mentioned line printer, in normal printing, there is almost no probability that all the print data is print dots (the dots that are actually printed when the head is driven). The ratio (ratio of printed dots to printed data) is about 25%. Therefore, by varying the number of heads driven simultaneously according to the printing rate of print data, the current capacity of the head power source can be utilized as effectively as possible, and faster printing can be performed. However, in conventional line printers, the number of dots of data to be output to the head is determined in advance for each printer, and the printing speed cannot be increased in accordance with the data printing rate.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a printing control device capable of higher speed printing with a small power supply capacity.

[Means to solve the problem]

FIG. 1 is a diagram explaining the principle of the present invention. In the figure, a memory 1 sequentially stores input print data, and a counting means 2
counts the number of printed dots (the number of dots actually printed by driving the head) of the print data in each block or combination of blocks, and the storage means 3 counts the number of printed dots in each block or combination of blocks. The data control means 5 stores in memory 1 that the number of dots does not exceed the number of dots that can be printed simultaneously.
A predetermined number of blocks of print data are collectively output to the printing means 4, and the printing means 4 is equipped with a plurality of heads for printing the print data.

[For production]

In the present invention, when printing the print data stored in the memory 1, the data control means 5 determines the number of print dots of the print data of each block or a combination of blocks from the output of the storage means 3. Determine whether the number of dots that can be printed simultaneously is exceeded. If a plurality of blocks of print data can be printed at the same time, the print data of the plurality of blocks is outputted to the printing means 4 at once. Then, the data of the plurality of blocks are simultaneously printed in the printing means 4.

Therefore, without increasing the number of print dots that can be printed simultaneously,
Since multiple blocks of print data can be printed simultaneously, faster printing is possible without increasing the power capacity of the print head.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 2 to 11.

FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing the configuration of a printing control device according to an embodiment. Below, the impression data of a seal with four levels of black and white gradation is sent from a host computer (not shown).
A case will be described in which printing data (print data) is printed by a printer having a 1024-dot printing radius. Further, in this embodiment, a drive current is supplied to the print head section 16 from a power source having a current capacity of 3A, and a maximum of 64 dots can be printed simultaneously with a drive current of 40mA per head.

8-bit print data sent from the host computer is input to the CPUI 2 via the parallel Vll interface circuit 11. The CPU 12 stores the received print data in the RAM 13 and converts the format of the stored data, or collects multiple blocks of data to be described later and sends them to the video interface circuit 15.
This is the central processing unit that performs processing such as outputting data to the computer. CPU12
When it receives the above print data, it first temporarily stores the data in the storage area A of the RAM 13 and outputs it to the dot number counter 14.

The dot number counter 14 counts the number of printed dots (the number of dots actually printed by driving the head) for each predetermined block of print data, and checks whether the number exceeds 64 dots by checking the flag register corresponding to each block. a, b...-a+d
・-・Stored in a+d+e+h, etc.

Further, the CPU 12 converts the print data stored in the storage area A of the RAM 13 into serial output data to be output to the video interface circuit 5, and transfers it to the storage area B of the RAM 13.

Here, the structure of print data sent from the above-mentioned host computer will be explained. The print data of one dot is 2-bit gradation data of 12 degrees, as shown in Figure 3.
21'' represents four gradations of black and white.

Upper bit “21” and lower bit “2°” are both “0”
When , it represents a white unprinted dot, and the upper bit r2
' J -0, when lower focus "2°" -1, r2'
J-1゜r2' When J-0, or the upper bit "
When both "2'" and the lower bit "2°" are "1", it represents a black printed dot, and also represents a black dot with darker shades in the above order. Then, as shown in Figure 4, the lower bit "2°" of these 2-bit y*m data
1024 bits of data are sent out, and then 1024 bits of gradation data of the upper bit "2'" are sent out in the same way. As shown in Figure 4, this 1024-bit data consists of the 1st bit, 9th bit, 17th bit...
Block A consists of (8N+1) bit data, 2nd bit, 10th bit, 18th bit... (
Block B consisting of data on the 8N+2)th bit, and blocks C, D, E, F consisting of data on the higher bits in order.
,G.

It is divided into 8 blocks of H. Printing by the print head section 16 is performed based on these blocks, and the data of each block is transmitted by a control signal 5 shown in FIG.
TROBEI and 5TROBE2 allow printing by dividing into lower 64 bits and upper 64 bits.

In the storage area A of the RAM 13 mentioned above, as shown in FIG. 5, 1024 dots of data are stored in a 128-byte memory area, starting from the first dot of the lower gradation data "2°". There is.

Furthermore, 1024 dots of data are similarly 128
Stored in byte memory area.

On the other hand, the dot number counter 14 has the above A, B...
8 blocks of H and A+ with multiple of those blocks
D, E+H, B+C, F+GS, A+D+E+H, B+
For each block such as C+F+G, memorize whether the number of printed dots in each block exceeds 64 dots a.
,b...h,,a+d.

e + h - b + c,, f + g sa
Flag registers such as +d+eh1b+c+r+g are provided.

Then, it is determined whether one or both of the 2-bit gradation data of each dot is "1", and the number of printed dots in each block is counted. As a result, "1" is set in the corresponding flag register for blocks in which the number of printed dots exceeds 64 dots, and "0" is set in the flag registers corresponding to blocks in which the number of printed dots is less than 64 dots.

Further, FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the configuration of the storage area B of the RAM 13 mentioned above. The lower 2 bits of the 8-bit data in storage area B contain 2-bit gradation data "2" of the same dot.
1" and "2°" are stored, and the upper 6 bits are invalid data. As shown in the figure, 1024 x 2 bits of print data are sequentially stored in a memory area of IK bytes starting from address 1000H.

Returning to FIG. 1, the data thus stored in the storage area of the RAM 13 is stored in the basic blocks A1B1, . A+DSE+H in units or multiple blocks of these
... are transferred to the video interface circuit 15 in block units such as A+D+E+H. Then, these data are outputted from the video interface circuit 15 to the print head section 16 of the printer and printed.

Therefore, depending on the contents of the above-mentioned flag register, the printing section 16 can print multiple blocks of data at the same time, as long as the number of print dots does not exceed 64 dots, and can print at higher speed. .

FIG. 7 shows an example of the circuit of the print head section 16, in which data output from the video interface circuit 15 is sequentially transferred to a 512-bit shift register 21. The transferred data is then latched by the latch circuit 22 at a predetermined timing. The 512 output terminals of the launch circuit 22 are Nantes gates ND1 to N, respectively.
Input to D512. The other input terminals of the Nant gates ND1 to ND256 corresponding to the first half 256 dots are supplied with a control signal 5T for controlling the output of data to the print head.
ROBE1 is input, and a control signal 5TROBE2 having a similar function is input to other input terminals of NAND games ND257 to ND512 corresponding to the latter 256 dots. And these 512 Nante gates ND1 to ND5
As shown in the figure, the output of 12 is input to the common terminal of the 1st and 2nd dot heads, and the output of ND2 is input to the common terminal of the 3rd and 4th dots. Then, the output of each Nant gate is sequentially input to the common terminal of the corresponding head.

Also, the 1st and 4th dots of the 1024-dot print head
Dot, 5th dot, 8th dot... (8N+1
) dot, (8N+4) dot, (8N+5)
The head voltage C1 is supplied to each head of the dot, (8N+8), and
Dot, 7th dot... (8N+2) dot,
(8N+3) dot, (8N+6) dot, (
8N+7) Head voltage C2 is supplied to the dot. In addition, although it was not mentioned in the explanation of Figure 4, the numerical value 1 indicates the number of data points in each dot in the figure.
．． (CI-], ), (C2-1) ... shown in parentheses on the right side of 2...1024... etc. are,
These don't data indicate which print head to which the above-mentioned head voltage C1 or C2 is supplied.

That is, as shown in the timing chart of FIG.
By alternately switching the voltages C1 and C2, 512
The head can be driven dot by dot, and the control signal 5T
By alternately switching ROBEI and 5TROBE2, it is possible to drive the 512 dots by dividing them into two, the lower 256 dots and the upper 256 dots, as described above.

Next, based on the above configuration, the ninth section describes a print control process of transferring data of multiple blocks at once according to the number of print dots of print data from the host computer and printing the data of the multiple blocks at the same time. This will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in the figure.

When the CPU 12 receives the print data from the host computer, it temporarily stores the print data for one line (1024 dots) in the memory area A of the RAM 13 as described above, and also stores the data in the dot number counter. 1
4 to count the number of printed dots (step S1). Then, 1024x each consisting of 2-bit gradation data stored in the storage area A of the RAM 13
2-bit print data has gradation data in the lower 2 bits.
2' and 2° are stored, and the other upper 6 bits of data are converted to invalid 8-bit data and stored in RAM1.
The data is transferred to the storage area B of No. 3 (step S).

Through these processes, the print data sent from the host computer is converted from data having the configuration shown in FIG. 5 to data corresponding to serial output as shown in FIG. 6.

When the data in the storage area B mentioned above is output to the VLdeO interface circuit 15, it is determined which blocks of data are to be output at the same time (thinning method) according to the contents of the flag register of the dot number counter 14. Determine the number of data transfers (thinning number) based on the number of blocks to be output simultaneously (step S), and step s
Data is transferred to the video interface circuit 15 according to the number of transfers determined in step 3 (step Sa).

The data transferred to the video interface circuit 15 is output to the print head unit 16 of the printer, and the printer side performs firmware control of the print head and the like to execute printing (step SS).

Here, the processing contents in step S3 will be explained in detail by taking as an example the data of the blowers A, D, and BSH in FIG. 1θ.

As mentioned above, the flag registers a, d, ...a+d, ...a+d+e+ of the dot number counter 14
h is set to ``1'' when the number of printed dots in the corresponding block exceeds 64 dots, and to ``0'' when it is less than 64 dots. Figure 10 shows rlJ in each flag register.
When 0 is set, it is represented by rOJ, and when 0 is set, it is represented by ``x'', and furthermore, the combination of blocks to be transferred together at that time is shown.

As shown in FIG. 10 (1), flag register a.

When dS6sh is all "1", that is, the number of printed dots of each block data of A, D, E, and H is all over 64 dots, of course other registers a+d, e+h
, a+d+e+h is also "1", and in this case ASD
, E, and H, print data is sequentially transferred in units of 128 dots. Then, the data in block units is latched by the latch circuit 22 of the print head section 16. At this time, since the number of printed dots in each block exceeds 64 dots, the data in each block is transmitted by the control signal 5TR.
By OBEI and 5TROBE2, the image is divided into two parts, 64 lower dots and 64 upper dots, and printed. Therefore, the number of data transfers at this time is 4 times, the number of prints is 8 times,
The number of transfers and printing will be the same as before.

Also, as shown in FIG. 10 (2), when the block unit flags a1d and e are "0" when transferring each block, that is, the number of printed dots in each block of ASD and H is 64. When the number of dots is smaller than 128 dots, the data of 128 dots of those blocks can be printed simultaneously in block units. Therefore, when printing the data of the block of A and DSE, control signals 5TROBEI and 5TROBEI are used.
2 to high level at the same time, Nant gates ND1 to N
By opening all D512s and simultaneously outputting data for each block to the print head, it is possible to print 128 dots at the same time. Therefore, in this case, the number of data transfers remains the same, 4 times, but since the data of blocks A, D, and H can be printed simultaneously in block units, the number of times of printing can be reduced to 5, and printing is faster than before. be able to.

Further, FIG. 11(1) shows an example of printing in units of each block, and this figure also shows printing in blocks B, C1F, and G. In this case, all print data 1
The number of times 024 dots are transferred is 8 times, and the number of times they are printed is 16 times at maximum and 8 times at minimum.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 10 (3) to alI, when one of registers a+dSe+h is rOJ, that is, the number of print dots of one print data of two blocks is 64.
When the number of dots is less than 64 dots, two blocks of print data of 64 dots or less are simultaneously transferred to the video interface circuit 15.6 For example, as shown in FIG. 11, when register a+d is "0" and register e+h is "1", A
Since the data of blocks D and D can be printed at the same time, the data of those two blocks are transferred together for the first time.
In the second and third times, the data of E block and H block are transferred respectively. At this time, register a+d
, eSh is "0", so the print head unit 16 is A+DS
The data latched in each transfer block unit of ESH is
Control signals 5TROBEI and 5TROBE2 are used to print simultaneously without dividing into two.

That is, in this case, the number of data transfers is three times, and the number of times of printing is also three times, and printing can be performed at a higher speed than printing in blocks.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 3(b), registers a+d.

When e+h are both "0" and a+d+e+h are "1", that is, when the number of printed dots in each of the two blocks of A+D and E+H is 64 dots or less, the block data of A and D are transferred together, and then the block data of E is transferred. and H block data are transferred together.

In this case, the data of each block of A+D and E+H can be printed simultaneously for each transfer block. Therefore, both the number of times of transfer and the number of times of printing are two.

FIG. 11 (2) shows an example of printing in units of two blocks, and the figure shows A+D, B+C1E+H, F.
This shows the case where each block of +G is printed simultaneously. In this case, the number of transfers is 4 and the number of printing is 4. Further, the combination of these blocks is predetermined based on the structure of the head.

Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 10 αl, register a+(1
When +6+h is "0", the number of printed dots in the entire 4 blocks is 64 dots or less, and 4 of A+D+E+H
Block data can be transferred in one go. In addition, since the total number of printed dots is 64 or less at this time, a total of 512 dots of upper dots and lower dots of data of the A+D+E+H block can be printed at the same time.

Figure 11 (3) shows an example of printing in units of four blocks, and the figure shows A+D+B+HSB+C+F+G.
This shows the case where each block is printed at the same time.゛In this case, the number of transfers and the number of prints for all 1024 dots of print data are both 2 times, and compared to printing in block units of A, B, ...H, the number of transfers is 1/4 and the number of prints is 1/4.
It is 8.

As described above, in the above embodiment, in a line printer or the like having a large number of heads, the number of printed dots of the sent print data is counted in units of basic blocks and in units of blocks that are a combination of multiple blocks. For each block, a register stores whether the number of dots exceeds the number of dots that can be simultaneously printed by the printer. and,
A plurality of blocks of data are collectively transferred according to the contents of the register, and printing is performed simultaneously for each transfer block or by further dividing the transfer block. Therefore, without increasing the maximum number of print dots that can be printed simultaneously by the printer, that is, without increasing the power capacity of the print head power supply, many dots can be printed simultaneously according to the printing rate (ratio of print dots) of the print data. Since data can be printed, it is possible to create a printer that is smaller and can print at higher speeds.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, it is possible to realize a printing control device capable of faster printing with a simple configuration without increasing the power supply capacity of the head.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a diagram explaining the principle of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a circuit block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 3 is a diagram showing the contents of gradation data, and Fig. 4 is a diagram showing the structure of print data. , FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the configuration of the RAM storage area A, FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the configuration of the RAM storage area B, and FIG. 7 is a circuit diagram of the print head section 16 in the embodiment shown in FIG. 2. Block diagram; Figure 8 is a diagram showing an example of the printing timing of the print head section in Figure 7; Figure 9 is a flowchart explaining the operation of the embodiment shown in Figure 2; Figure 10 is a diagram of the flag register. Figure 11 is a diagram showing the contents and transfer blocks, and is a diagram showing an example of printing by the print head. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Memory, 2... Counting means, 3... Storage means, 4... Printing means, 5... Data control means. Patent Applicant: Fujitsu Machine Electric Co., Ltd. Brocade work diagram for thB/+ structure

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A memory (1) for storing input print data; a counting means (2) for counting the number of print dots in each block or combination of blocks of the print data; A storage means (3) for storing that the number of printed dots in a combination of blocks does not exceed the number of dots that can be printed simultaneously; a printing means (4) comprising a plurality of print heads; and an output of the storage means (3). A print control device characterized by comprising: data control means (5) for outputting a predetermined number of blocks of print data in the memory (1) together to the print means (4) according to the print data of the memory (1).