JPH0293723A - Recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To facilitate recording control and simultaneously to use a printing buffer at a necessarily minimum and to effectively utilize resources by virtually replacing a receiving buffer with the printing buffer when a bit image is recorded. CONSTITUTION:When data is inputted from a host 10, a control part 3 houses the data to a receiving buffer 5-2 and investigates whether the data is record starting instructions or not. In the case of Yes, it is investigated whether recording information in a text buffer 5-3 are dot image data and an image recording mode or not. When the image recording mode is obtained, a print starting address in a control RAM 5-1 is defined as the leading data housing address of the bit image data in the receiving buffer 5-2. Further, a print ending address is set to the end data housing address of the bit image data in the receiving buffer 5-2. Next, a recording part 2 is activated and the print starting and ending addresses in the RAM 5-1 are read. Then, the data to be recorded are successively read by a reading addresses in a printing or receiving buffer 5-4 or 5-2, sent to the recording part 2 and outputted.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a recording device that includes a reception buffer that stores received data and a recording buffer that stores recording data.

[Prior Art] A conventional recording device (printing device) includes a reception buffer for storing received data and a print buffer (recording buffer) for storing print data to be printed out. Regardless of whether the data is text data or image data, it is configured such that all data is once read out, developed in a recording buffer, and then recorded and output.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In the above conventional example, even if the received data is a bit image, and the data pattern to be recorded is the same as the received data pattern in the reception buffer, it is temporarily removed from the reception buffer. All data was read and expanded to the recording buffer (print buffer). The control during this time is shown in FIG. 3(A). Therefore, as shown in FIG. 3A, there is a drawback that complicated control and a very long processing time are required even when recording bit image data.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention has been made for the purpose of solving the above-mentioned problems, and includes the following configuration as one means for solving the above-mentioned problems.

That is, a recording buffer for storing recording data, a receiving buffer for storing received data, a determining means for determining whether or not the received data stored in the receiving buffer is pattern data, and the determining means determines whether the received data is pattern data or not. expansion means converts the received data into corresponding pattern data and stores it in the recording buffer when it is determined that the received data is not data; and when the determination means determines that the received data is pattern data, the reception buffer is assumed to be the recording buffer and the data is received. Recording control means for recording and outputting the received data in the buffer, and recording and outputting the expanded data of the recording buffer expanded by the expanding means when the determining means determines that the received data is not pattern data.

[Operation] In the above configuration, when the received data can be directly recorded and output, the recorded data is directly read from the receive buffer and recorded and output without being expanded from the receive buffer to the record buffer.

[Example 1] Hereinafter, an example according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

[First Embodiment] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment according to the present invention. In the figure, 1 is an operation display unit for performing operation input and displaying the operating status of the recording apparatus of this embodiment, and 2 is an operation display unit. A recording section 3 includes a recording head having a dot forming element and a head driver for driving each dot forming element based on recording data from a main control section 3, which is stored in a control ROM 6, for example, as shown in FIG. The main control unit controls the entire embodiment according to the program shown in FIG. Data is also exchanged between the two. Reference numeral 5 denotes a RAM for storing each processing data, etc. in this embodiment, and the RAM 5 includes a control RAM 5-1 for storing control data, etc. including a print succession start address and a print succession end address, which will be described later, and a host 10.
A reception buffer 5-2 temporarily stores data received from
, a text buffer 5-3 that stores character code data and recording mode to be recorded when recording characters, a print buffer 5-4 that stores recording data converted and developed into a dot pattern that is actually recorded in the recording section 2, etc. It includes buffers with the following functions. Reference numeral 6 represents a ROM in which parameters used in this embodiment in addition to the above-mentioned programs are stored, and 7 represents a character generator (CG) in which character pattern data corresponding to character code data is stored.

The recording control of this embodiment having the above configuration will be explained below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In step S01, input of data such as character data to be recorded from the recording unit 2 from the host 1° such as a computer via the interface unit 4 is monitored. host 1
When data from 0 is input, the process moves to step SO2, the received data is stored in the reception buffer 5-2, and the process moves to step SO3. At step SO3, the host lO
It is determined whether or not the input data is a recording start command. If it is not a recording start command, the process moves to step SO4 and the data to be recorded (printed) is determined based on the character code data of the data stored in the reception buffer 5-2. ) text is generated and stored in the text buffer 5-3. At this time, if the received data is character code data, the recording position is set to text recording mode, and if the received data is not character code data, but bit image data, etc., the recording position is set to image recording mode. Set to . and step S
01 to prepare for reception of the next data.

On the other hand, if the input data from the host 10 is a recording start command in step SO3, the process moves to step SO5, the recording mode in the text buffer 5-3 is checked, and if the input data is received before the recording start command is received, in step SO'4 It is determined whether the recorded information stored in the text buffer 5-3 is dot image data and the mode is image recording mode. If the mode is image recording mode, the process moves to step SO9.

Further, if the recorded information is not dot image data but character code data or the like and the text recording mode is selected, the process moves to step SO6. In step SO6, the character code data to be recorded received before receiving the recording start command and stored in the text buffer 5-3 in step SO4 is read out and sent to CO2, where it is converted into corresponding character pattern data and stored in the print buffer 5-3. -4 to the corresponding recording position to generate a recording dot pattern.

Then, in step SO7, it is checked whether or not all of the unrecorded character code data stored in the text buffer 5-3 has been converted into image data. If not, the process returns to step S6 to start the next character. The code data is converted into image data and expanded into the print buffer 5-4.

If the conversion of all character code data into image data is completed in step SO7, the process moves to step SO8, and the print start address indicating the start position of the image data in the print buffer 5-4 and the end position of the development are indicated. The print end address is written into the control RAM 5-1 and the process moves to step SIO.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step SO5 that the image recording mode is set, the process moves to step SO9, and the control R described above is executed.
The print start address in AM5-1 is received in the buffer 5-2.
Then, the print end address is set as the end data storage address of the bit image data in the reception buffer 5-2, and the process moves to step SIO.

In step S10, the recording unit 2 is activated, and the control RAM 5-
Read the print start address and print end address in 1,
The data to be recorded specified by the read address in the print buffer 5-4 or the reception buffer 5-2 is sequentially read out and sent to the recording section 2, and is printed out from the recording section 2.

When this printing process is completed, the process returns to step Sol again and the above operations are repeated.

By controlling as described above, when the data received from the host 10 is image data that can be directly recorded and output, printing is performed from the reception buffer 5-2 of FIG. 3(A), which was previously required. Data transfer control T1 to the buffer 5-4 is completely unnecessary. Therefore, in the past, there was a data transfer/expansion process Tl from the reception buffer to the print buffer, so the recording processing time T was T=TI+72, but in this embodiment shown in FIG. 3(B), , the recording processing time T becomes T '' T2. That is, compared to the conventional example, T
The recording end time can be shortened by +, and control can also be simplified.

[Second Embodiment] The above control was data transfer control based on program processing by the main control unit 3, that is, data transfer control in so-called sense mode. However, when a DMA control function is added to the embodiment device, Data transfer control can be performed faster and with simpler program control. A case where the present invention is achieved using DMA will be described below.

Figure 4 shows a second example of the present invention achieved using the MDA control function.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, in which the same components as in FIG.

In FIG. 4, an operation display section 1, a recording section 2, a main control section 3,
, the interface section 4, the RAM 5, the control ROM 6, and the character generator 7 have the same configuration as in FIG.

In addition, the control RAM 5-1 of the RAM 5, the reception buffer 5
-2, the text buffer 5-3, and the print buffer 5-4 have the same structure as in FIG.

In the second embodiment, in addition to the above configuration similar to that in FIG.
It is equipped with The DMA control unit 8 is a block that performs data transfer processing according to the transfer source and transfer destination addresses set by the main control unit 3, reads data from the area specified by the transfer source address from the transfer source, and transfers the data to the transfer destination. This block automatically transfers data to the area specified by the previous address.

The recording control operation of the second embodiment having the above configuration will be explained below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In step S21, input of data such as character data to be recorded from the recording section 2 from the host 10 such as a computer via the interface section 4 is monitored. host 1
When data from 0 is input, the process moves to step S22, the received data is stored in the reception buffer 5-2, and the process moves to step S23. In step S23, the host 10
It is determined whether or not the human input data is a recording start command, and if it is not a recording start command, the process moves to step S24 and the data to be recorded (printed) is determined based on the character code data of the data stored in the reception buffer 5-2. ) text is generated and stored in the text buffer 5-3. At this time, if the received data is character code data, the recording position is set to text recording mode, and if the received data is not character code data, but bit image data, etc., the recording position is set to image recording mode. Set to . and step S
21 to prepare for reception of the next data.

On the other hand, in step 323, if the input data from the host 10 is a recording start command, the process moves to step S25, the recording mode in the text buffer 5-3 is checked, and if the input data is received before the recording start command is received, in step S24, the text buffer 5-3
It is determined whether the recording information stored in -3 is dot image data and the mode is image recording mode, and if it is the image recording mode, the process moves to step S34.

Further, if the recorded information is not dot image data but character code data or the like and the text recording mode is selected, the process moves to step S26.

In step S26, the start address of the unrecorded (untransferred) information of the character code data to be recorded in the text buffer 5-3 created in step S24, the print buffer 5
Parameters such as the write address to -4 and the number of bytes to be transferred are set in the DMA control unit 8. and step S
At step 27, the DMA control section 8 is activated, and by DMA control, unrecorded character code data in the text buffer 5-3 is called up and set in CG7. As a result, CG7 outputs character pattern data corresponding to the set character code data. Therefore, in step S28, the DMA control unit 8 sequentially reads character pattern data corresponding to the character code set earlier than CG7 by MA control, and starts DMA data transfer. From then on,
In the DMA control unit 8, character pattern data for one character C
The data is read from G and transferred to the transfer designated area of the print buffer 5-4. Then, in the next step S29, the text buffer 5
-3, and if there is still recorded data, the process returns to step S25 and steps 325 to S2 described above.
8 is repeated, and all the contents of the text buffer 5-3 are pattern-developed into the print buffer 5-4.

By checking in step S29, the text buffer 5-3
If the unrecorded data inside has been completed, the process moves to step S30, and the recording section 2 performs recording processing thereafter. First, in step S30, it is monitored whether or not it is the recording timing of the head. If it is the recording timing, the process moves to step S31. In step S31, parameters for performing DMA transfer for the print data by the print head are set in the DMA control section 8 (continuation address from the print buffer 5-4, write address to the recording section 2, number of transferred bytes, etc.). Step S
In step S32, the DMA control unit 8 and the recording unit 2 are activated, and DMA transfer to the recording unit 2 is performed by the amount specified by the parameters set in step S31. The recording section 2 performs recording according to the sent recording data. Then, in step S33, it is determined whether recording of all the data in the print buffer 5-4 has been completed, and if the recording has been completed, the process moves to step S20, and if it has not finished, the process moves to step S30 to continue the above-mentioned processing. .

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S25 that the received data in the receive buffer 5-2 is bit image data, the process moves to step S34, where the bit image data start address in the receive buffer is set as the recording start address, and the bit image data The end address is set in the DMA control unit 8 as the recording end address', and the process moves to step S35. In step S35, as in step S30, the recording timing is monitored, and when the recording timing is reached, the process moves to step S36.

In step S36, the DM for the print data of the print head is
Set the parameters for A transfer (read address is reception buffer 5-2, write address is recording section), and
Activate the control unit 8. Upon receiving this, the DMA control unit 8 performs DM according to the parameters as shown in step S37.
The recording section 8 that receives the A transfer performs recording.

Then, in the following step S38, the address of the reception buffer 5-2 is compared with the bit image end address set in step S34, and if the two addresses match and recording has ended, the process returns to step S21, and if the recording has ended, For example, the process returns to step S35 and continues the recording process.

As explained above, according to this embodiment, by virtually replacing the receive buffer with the print buffer when recording a bit image, recording control is facilitated, and the print buffer only needs to be used to the minimum required level, and resource resources can be reduced. can be used effectively.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, when directly recordable data is received, the reception buffer is virtually replaced with the recording buffer, thereby simplifying data transfer during recording and providing easy control. In addition to making it possible to use the buffer effectively, this has the effect of improving data transfer/data development speed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a recording device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the recording operation of the recording device of this embodiment, and FIG. 3A is a diagram showing data transfer timing of a conventional recording device. , FIG. 3(B) is a diagram showing the data transfer timing of the recording device of the present embodiment, FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the recording device of the second embodiment according to the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the recording device of the second embodiment. Recording operation flowchart, FIG. 6(A) is a diagram showing DMA data transfer timing of a conventional recording apparatus, and FIG. 6(B) is a diagram showing DMA data transfer timing of the recording apparatus of this embodiment. a. 6... control ROM, 7... character generator, 8... DMA control section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a recording device that includes a reception buffer for storing received data and a recording buffer for storing recording data, when the received data can be directly recorded and output, the received data is not expanded from the reception buffer to the recording buffer. A recording apparatus characterized in that the recording data is directly read out from the reception buffer and outputted for recording.