JPH0320818A - Data output device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To soft-copy and display data sent from a host machine by unifying a reception function, the accumulation retrieval function of the data, and a data display function to be a printer. CONSTITUTION:A printer emulator program 14 is started up, and the data from the host machine 8 is received. The data received from the host machine, after an index for retrieval being attached, is saved in a storage medium 3, and a menu is returned to a job selection menu. Next, when document display 33 is selected with the job selection of a tablet 5b, a desired document is retrieved, and it is displayed on a display part 5a. Then, hand-writing input to a device main body 1 can be performed. When a hard copy is desired, printer output 36 is selected with the tablet 5b. When the printer output is selected, a document to be output is retrieved and displayed, and the printer emulator program 14 is started up, then, it is printed out to the printer.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Technical field to which the invention pertains) The present invention relates to a data output device 1n for displaying a software 1-copy of data sent from a host machine such as a personal computer.

(Conventional technology) Conventionally, computer coater handling, total i11'! 8% When printing data from a photomachine such as data retention, a hard copy was printed on recording paper using a printer, but conventional printers had slow printing speeds. Especially Inbaku I
-Printers used to make a lot of noise, Part 1: Recently, printers with printer interfaces and RAM have been developed to increase transfer speeds using printer buffers, and low-noise non-impact printers for electrophotographic recording, etc. etc. are becoming popular.

However, the print buffer only temporarily stores data from the host machine via the printer's ink and face, and the contents cannot be viewed unless the printer is connected to the actual printer. , Non-Impact 1 - The purpose of the printer is to make hard copies, and it is not silent due to the paper feeding mechanism, fan, etc., and the mount is large and 5. The drawback was that a large amount of recording power was required to print data.

Furthermore, when changing the paper size, it is troublesome to change the roll paper, recording paper cassette, etc.
Maintenance such as replenishing consumables such as toner and preventing jams was difficult.

(Objective of the Invention) An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the conventional printer and to display a soft copy of data sent from a host machine.

(Structure of the Invention) (Characteristics of the Invention and Differences from the Prior Art) The present invention includes a printer interface section with a host machine and a storage section for data sent from the host machine in an apparatus main body having an integrated input/display device. and an operation control section for soft copy display.

The present invention differs from prior art data output devices, particularly hard copy output such as printers, in that it provides soft copy display.

(Embodiment) Fig. 1 is an external perspective view of an embodiment of the present invention, in which 1 is the main body of the device, 2 is an information storage section, 3 is a storage medium, 4 is an insertion slot for the storage medium 3, and 5 is an input With an integrated display device,
It consists of a display section 5a and a tablet 5b (see Figure 2).
Note that since the received result is viewed as a soft copy, the display section 5a does not need to have the same size and resolution as the print size, and is configured to make full use of display techniques such as scaling and scrolling. . 6 is a power switch of the device main body 1, and 7a is a connector. The features of this embodiment are as follows:
As a connection interface with a host machine such as a personal computer, it is equipped with a printer interface circuit 7b (Fig. 2) based on Centronics specifications and an information storage section 2.
It operates as a virtual printer when communicating with the host machine, and receives data from the host machine through the printer interface. A large amount of data from this host machine is stored in the storage medium 3, but the main body of the device 1 is equipped with an information search processing function to efficiently search for the desired stored data and input and display the search results. It is displayed on the display section 5a of the body shape device 5.

In addition, the input/display integrated device 5 includes a tablet 5b capable of touch input using a pen or a finger, and handwriting input.
Display section 5a of a flat display such as a liquid crystal (LCD)
It is an integrated system. The information storage unit 2 can be a floppy disk drive, an optical disk drive, an optical card drive, an IC card drive, a magnetic card drive, a cassette magnetic tape drive, etc.
Depending on the storage method, floppy disk, optical disk,
A storage medium 3 such as an optical card, an RC card, an AT card, or a cassette magnetic tape is pushed into the apparatus body. Among these, optical disks must be rewritable or recordable, and suitable rewritable disks include magneto-optical disks and phase-change optical disks. In addition, in the first engineering drawing, floppy disk,
Although an example is shown in which a removable storage medium 3 such as an optical disk is applied, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, the insertion slot 4 may be removed by incorporating a hard disk or a semiconductor memory into the main body. .

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the internal structure of the apparatus body 1 shown in FIG. 1 above. In the hard block (1) in the figure. 7b is the printer interface circuit, and 10 is a control circuit, which is connected to an I/O driver 101 and a microcomputer (CPU) 102 via a bus 107.
, ROM103, R A M 104, and Kanji R
It consists of an OM 105 and a DMAC (direct memory access) 106. Further, in the control circuit 10, received data is displayed on the display section 5a of the input/display integrated device 5 via the I/O driver 101, and touch input and handwritten input are input from the tablet 5b. Data input from the host machine 8 via the connector 7a and printer interface 7b is stored in the information storage section 2, and the stored data is taken out for soft copy display.

Next, in the soft block (■), 1l is the basic input/output software program (BIOS), l2 is the operation software program (OS), l3 is the man-machine interface (MMI) and search kernel, 14 is the printer emulator program, and l5 is the These are various application programs (AD). Of these, 11 to 15 are software, and the programs are stored in the ROM 103 or the storage medium 3 141. FIG. An example of a job selection menu displayed on the display section 5a of the input/display integrated device 5 shown in the figure is shown. As illustrated in the figure, various mode displays 30, function keys 3l, and scroll keys 32 are displayed in the upper part. The data display area in the middle section has a processing selection menu and document display 3.
3, data reception 34, other application programs AP35, and printer (PRT) output 36 are displayed. The keyboard status is displayed 41 on the keyboard display section 37 in the lower part.

Next, an example of how this data output device is used is shown in Figure 1. The host machine 8 is an information processing device 10 equipped with a function of outputting data to a printer such as a personal computer, a workstation, various measuring instruments, and the like. L12, which connects the host machine 8 and the lighting main body 1, separates the normal printer 9a connected to the host machine 8, and connects the printer 9a.
Connect the printer cable 9b that is connected to The printer sends the data it wants to print to the printer cable Ωb without knowing that the printer cable 91] is connected to the printer cable Ωb. That is, the main body of the apparatus receives data from the host 1 and the machine 8, and operates as a normal printer. However, the recording function of the paper medium tab 5 is not available, and the borrowing and borrowing results are displayed on the display unit 5a as a soft I-copy, and the information is stored in the storage medium 3.

Now, when data reception 34 is selected in Fig. 3, the second
The printer emulator/interface program 14 shown in the figure is started, the device body 1 runs the virtual printer, and the data is transferred from the host machine 8 to the connector 7a and printer interface circuit 7l. The data is transferred to the information storage unit 2 via the control circuit 10 and stored in the storage medium 3.
As mentioned above, the printer interface has been standardized as the Sen1ronics specification. To view the data from the user machine 8, select Kanji ROM if the stored data is coded characters, etc.
The image is developed into a two-dimensional dot image in step 105, and then displayed on the display section 5a and viewed by clicking a soft copy.

This receiving operation is performed by the software 1-block (I) in FIG.
Controlled by the program group (N) and the control circuit 10 of the hard block (1), 1. Ru. That is, the BIOS II controls the hardware block (I) and devices, and also provides a software interface with the upper level programmer l1. O
S12 performs file management and process management of the entire system. The kernel 13 is a data search mechanism and a man-machine interface management mechanism.

General database management software +-. =Similarly, assigning indexes, searching, sorting, etc. to data management units'! ? ．． q Responsible for general matters. Further, the man-machine interface management mechanism is responsible for presenting job selection menus, search results, error messages, etc. to the user, and for command input processing. As mentioned above, the printer emulator program 414 is used to make this device body 1 act as a normal printer, and the printer emulator program 414 serves
Through handshake control with the printer, it receives print data and controls print output to a normal printer.

Further, as the various APs 15, it is possible to install various software of the same type as general PCs, such as word processors, databases, diagramming, spreadsheets, etc.

Next, explanation will be given using the processing flow of this embodiment shown in FIG. When you turn on the power, the selection menu (Figure 3) appears.
is displayed, and the process is selected on the tablet I-5b (second M).Here, in the above operation, the data reception 34
is selected, so printer Emi. :The L1 node program 14 is activated, and the shield main body 1 operates as a temporary printer and receives data from the computer 1-machine 8. At this time, there is no need to be aware of the existence of the 6 hosts 1, 8 machines, and the main body 1 of the apparatus, and a normal printout operation is sufficient. If the device main body 1- acts as a printer, it can act as an AP on the host machine by using an existing printer that is widely available (for example, a 20-inch printer manufactured by NEC Corporation). 1.The output function can be widely used. The data received from the host machine is saved in the storage medium 3 with an index for retrieval, and the process returns to the job selection menu.

Next, when the document display 33 is selected in job selection on the tablet 5b, the desired document (
Print data such as codes or handwritten characters, figures, numbers, etc.) are searched for and displayed on the display section 5a. Here, the device main body engineer can input by hand, and if necessary, can add a handwritten memo to the displayed document. If a handwritten memo is added, the display ends after the data is saved in the storage medium 3, and the screen returns to the job selection menu.

In the above, the document is displayed as a soft copy, but if it is desired to print it out as a hard copy, select printer output 36 on the job selection menu with the tablet 5b. When printer output is selected, a document to be output is first searched for, and the searched document is loaded from the storage medium 3 into the RAM 104 of the control circuit 10 and displayed. Next, start the printer emulator program 14 and print out to a normal printer. At this time, the printer interface (Centronics) is one-way communication, and the device main body 1
Controls the data transfer direction with the printer as the source and the printer as the destination.

FIG. 6 is an example of the processing flow on the host machine 8 side, and (a
) in the case of an interface with a conventional device of this type, (
b) is the case of the interface in the device of the present invention. If the host machine 8 is a personal computer, there are a wide variety of software for its AP processing, such as word processors, databases, spreadsheets, and drawings.

In the case of conventional blowing (a), the data created using these AP software should be converted to a standard code system such as Shift JIS after the AP is terminated and if necessary converted to a standard code system such as Shift JIS.
Start communication software for a general-purpose interface such as S232C and transfer data to an external terminal.

On the other hand, in the case of the flow in (b) in the device of the present invention, data can be transferred to the device by outputting to a printer supported by the various AP software, and there is no need to terminate the AP each time. Moreover, there is no need to separately install communication software. Furthermore, since the data is received and displayed in the print format specified by the host machine's AP, there is an advantage that the display is easy to see.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, when the device according to the present invention is positioned as a printer, it does not perform hard copy recording, so the information transfer speed is high, and it is silent without the noise unlike conventional printers. ．． Moreover, since there is no paper feeding mechanism, printing mechanism, etc., the apparatus has the advantage of being extremely compact and consumes little power, and can also be freely adapted to the size of the recording paper to be inserted. Furthermore, there is no need for maintenance associated with hard copying, such as replacing roll paper, recording paper cassettes, etc., replenishing consumables such as recording paper and toner, and preventing jams.

Furthermore, when the device of the present invention is used as a personal information storage device, data from a host machine that stores a large amount of information can be selectively transferred and stored in the device of the present invention. At this time, data can be transferred by output operation to a printer supported by the host machine's AP software, and there is no need to terminate the AP each time.In addition, general-purpose communication software such as an RS232C interface can be installed separately. There's no need to keep it. Furthermore, the Centronics specification has been standardized as a printer interface, and the host machine model and OS
Regardless, data from the host machine can be received and viewed, and since it is displayed in the print format specified by the AP, it has the advantage of being easy to view.

In this way, the device of the present invention integrates the receiving function as a printer, the data storage/retrieval function, and the data display function, and there is no hard copy recording mechanism, making the device portable. Therefore, by selectively storing only the necessary information and carrying the data, there is no need to print out the host machine data as a hard copy in most applications, which has the advantage of promoting paperless offices and the like.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a perspective external view of one embodiment of the present invention, and Fig. 2 is a perspective view of an embodiment of the present invention.
The main body of the device shown in the figure 1. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of the job selection menu displayed on the display section 5a of the input/display integrated device 5 shown in FIG.
The figure shows an example of the use of this data output device, Figure 5 lJ5
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the processing flow of the present embodiment, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the processing flow of the conventional method (.) and the present invention (b) on the host machine side. 1...Main body of the device of the present invention, 2...Information storage unit. 3... Storage medium, 4... Insertion slot,
5...Input display integrated device, 6...ffi
lflX switch, 7a...connector, 7b...
Printer interface circuit, 8...Host machine. 9a...Printer, 9b...Printer cable, 10...Control circuit, 11...BIOS, 1
2...OS, 13...Man-machine interface and search kernel. 14...Printer emulator program, 15...Various AP. Figure 2 (a) Figure 6 (b)

Claims (1)

[Claims] A printer interface section that serves as a connection interface with a host machine such as a personal computer on the main body of the apparatus having an integrated input display device, a data storage section that stores data sent from the host machine via the printer interface section, and a data storage section that stores data sent from the host machine via the printer interface section. A data output device comprising: an operation control section for displaying received data from a data storage section as a soft copy.