JPH04169254A - Method for developing printing pattern - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce degree of use of memories by a method wherein an auxiliary development area is held in common by two main development areas in a developing means, and the auxiliary development area is provided for one line of printing only and is held in common by the main development area. CONSTITUTION:An image buffer A 42 is specified to do the first development of printing patterns and allowed to do it. Then it is confirmed whether or not another image buffer which is to do the next development of printing pattern is allowed to do the development, and when the buffer is not allowed, operation is suspended until it is allowed. When data processing is made for one line, the upper half of double height character is developed in the image buffer C (44) and the lower half of the same is developed either in the image buffer A (42) or the image buffer B (43). When the data processing for one line is finished, the image buffers which has finished the development are prohibited to do the development. Then the image buffer C (44) is allowed to do the development, and the image buffer in which the development is not made is designated as the one in which the next development is to be made. Then the printing is started.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printer that forms characters using dot matrices, and particularly relates to a printing pattern development method for printing double-height characters.

[Prior Art] As shown in Fig. 2, the conventional printing pattern development method has a main development area for two lines and an auxiliary development area for two lines, and the main development area and the auxiliary development area for each pair. The pair of main development area and auxiliary development area constituted one line pattern when actually printed.

And one area (main layer open area AIO + auxiliary expansion area A
While printing the pattern developed in 'll), the other fiC main development area B12 + auxiliary development area B' 13
) to develop the next pattern.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, the conventional technology requires a development area of two lines of the main development area and two lines of the auxiliary development area i#li, a total of four lines of sentences. Therefore, there is a problem that a large amount of memory is used, and a memory with a large capacity must be used, which increases costs.

The present invention is intended to solve these problems, and aims to reduce the amount of memory used by providing only one line of auxiliary expansion area and sharing the auxiliary expansion area with two main expansion areas.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides a printer that configures characters using a dot matrix, including a developing means for developing an original character pattern into a pattern to be actually printed, and at least two parts for developing the printed pattern by the developing means. The printing pattern developing method has two main developing areas and an auxiliary developing area, and the developing means is characterized in that the at least two main developing areas share the auxiliary developing area.

[Operation] When printing vertical double element lines continuously, first develop the printing pattern in the main development area 10 and the auxiliary development area 14, start printing from the pattern in the auxiliary development area 14, and after printing in this area finishes printing in the main development area 10. starts printing. At the same time, the next line of patterns is developed using the main development area 12 and the auxiliary development area 14, and when printing in the main development area 10 is completed, printing in the auxiliary development area 14 is repeated.

By sharing the auxiliary expansion area 14 between the main expansion area 10 and the main expansion area 12, it is not necessary to provide an auxiliary expansion area for each main expansion area, so the amount of memory used is reduced.

[Example] Embodiments of the present invention will be described below based on the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a printer to which the present invention is applied. The ROM 31t stores original character patterns, print routines, print pattern development routines, and received data processing routines, and the RAM 32 has an area for storing received data (hereinafter referred to as receive buffer 40) as shown in FIG. , an area for storing the pattern developed by the print pattern development routine (hereinafter referred to as image buffer 41) for three lines is secured.

Print data received from the I/F 34 is stored in a reception buffer 40 within the RAM 32. At the same time, ROM
RA according to the data processing routines stored in 31.
The data in the receive buffer 40 in M32 is processed from what is received first, and in the case of character data, it is processed in the ROM3.
1 is developed into a pattern to be actually printed, and stored in an image buffer 41 secured in the RAM 32.

The printing routine stored in the ROM 31 drives the mechanism 33 to perform printing in response to a printing command or when the image buffer 41 for one line becomes full.

Next, the operation of continuously printing double-height images in the printer configured as described above will be explained based on the flowcharts shown in FIGS. 5 and 6. In addition, what is written as IBUFA in the figure is image buffer A42, IBtlFB.
The one written as is image buffer B43, IBUFC.
The one written is image buffer C44, expansion IBL
IF is written as an image buffer in which the print pattern is developed, and print IBUF is written as the image buffer in which the developed print pattern is printed.

When the power is turned on, the printer starts operating according to the program stored in the f&ROM 31.

First, the image buffer A42 is used as the image buffer in which the print pattern is developed.
(Step 1).

Next, check whether the image buffer in which the print pattern is to be developed is permitted to develop, and if development is prohibited, wait until it is permitted (Step 2) One line of data is processed. The upper half of the file is expanded into image buffer C44, and the lower half is expanded into image buffer A42 or image buffer B43 (step 3).

When data processing for one line is completed, the expanded image buffer is prohibited from being expanded, and image buffer C is
44 as the image buffer to be printed, and designate the unexpanded image buffer as the next image buffer to be expanded (steps 4.5.6.).

Then, printing is started (step 7). The CPU 30 is interrupted by a signal generated by the mechanism 33, and processing is performed according to a flowchart shown in FIG. 6, which will be described later, during the interrupt processing.

Next, it waits for the image buffer C44 to finish printing (step 8). Since the image buffer C44 is shared by the image buffer A42 and the image buffer B43, this process prevents the image buffer C44 from being used for printing and development at the same time.

Continuous printing is performed by repeating the operations from step 2 to step 8.

FIG. 6 shows that the CPU 30 is controlled by the signal generated by the mechanism 33.
3 is a flowchart illustrating the processing during the interrupt processing when an interrupt is applied.

When this routine is called, it is first checked whether printing of the image buffer designated for printing has been completed (step 9), and if it has not been completed, printing processing is performed (step 10). If the printing has been completed, the image buffer that has been printed is determined (step 11).

The image buffer where printing has finished is image buffer A.
42, the image buffer A42 is allowed to be expanded (step 12), and if the image buffer in which printing has been completed is the image buffer B43, the image buffer B43 is allowed to be expanded (step 13).

The image buffer where printing has finished is image buffer C.
44, determine the image buffer expanded together with image buffer C44.Step 14) If it is image buffer A42, select image buffer A42 as the next image buffer to be printed.Step 15) If it is image buffer B43, select image buffer A42. Set image buffer B43 to the next image buffer for printing Step 1
6) Do.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, since it is not necessary to provide an auxiliary expansion area for each main expansion area, the amount of memory used is reduced to 3/4 of that of the conventional one, and a memory with a small capacity can be used, reducing costs. It has the advantage of being able to be brought down.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the present invention. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing the prior art of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a memory map of an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the present invention in detail. FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating the present invention in detail. 10... Main development area A 11... Auxiliary development area A' 12... Main development area B 13... Auxiliary development area B' 14... Auxiliary development area (shared) 15... Development means 16...Original character pattern or more Applicant Seiko Epson Co., Ltd. agent Patent attorney Kizobe Suzuki and 1 other person Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] A printer that configures characters using a dot matrix, the printer having a developing means for developing an original character pattern into a pattern to be actually printed, and at least two main developing areas and an auxiliary developing area in which the developing means develops the printed pattern,
A printed pattern development method, wherein the development means is characterized in that the at least two main development areas share an auxiliary development area.