JPH07266624A - Computer fitted with color printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain the title computer capable of allowing the hue displayed on a display means and the hue printed on printing paper to coincide with each other by allotting a palette register for a printer to the same I/O address as a display palette resister. CONSTITUTION:The color printer 3 controlled by a printer control means 14 is provided to a computer main body 2 having the display means 6 controlled by a display control means 7. A display palette register 8 in which the data determining the hue displayed on the screen of the display means 6 is written is added to the display control means 7 while a printer palette register in which the data determining the hue printed by the color printer 3 is written is added to the printer control means 14. Further, a data control means 4 controls the data written in the display palette register 8 and the data written in the printer palette register 11 so as to always make both data same.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a computer device with a color printer comprising a computer device body having a display means controlled by a display control means and a color printer controlled by printer control means.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a computer device with a color printer as described above, there is one called a palette register which is added to display control means. This is because if the display memory and the number of display colors possessed by the display means are in a one-to-one relationship, a very large capacity of display memory is required. It is possible to increase the number of display colors by selecting the palette register and allocating a large bit to the selected palette register. In this case, the number of colors that can be displayed simultaneously depends on the size of the capacity of the display memory, but the color tone that can be displayed depends on the number of bits of the palette register.

For example, in a specification of resolution 640 × 400, simultaneous display color number of 16 colors, and expressible color tone of 4096 colors, which is generally used in a personal computer or the like, a display memory of 512 KB and a palette register of 12 bits are sufficient. Become.

[0004]

However, in such a conventional example, if the contents of the palette register are not taken into consideration when the print data is sent from the computer main body to the color printer, it is displayed on the display means. Since the color tone is different from the color tone printed on the printing paper, there is a problem that the output (printing) result intended by the user may not be obtained.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems of the above-mentioned prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a color tone displayed on a display means and a color tone printed on a printing sheet. It is an object of the present invention to provide a computer device with a color printer, which can match with each other.

[0006]

To achieve the above object, a computer device with a color printer of the present invention is a color printer controlled by printer control means in a computer device main body having display means controlled by display control means. In a computer device with a color printer comprising: a display pallet register which is added to the display control means and in which data for determining a color tone to be displayed on the screen of the display means is written; A printer pallet register in which data for determining the color tone to be printed by the color printer is written, and data control means for controlling so that the data written in the display pallet register and the data written in the printer pallet register are always the same. Equipped with It is characterized in.

In order to achieve the same object, the data control means controls to write the data in the printer palette register and simultaneously write the data in the display palette register. desirable.

Further, in order to achieve the same object, it is desirable that the data control means controls first to write the data in the printer palette register and then to write the data in the display palette register. .

Further, in order to achieve the same purpose, the display means may be a CRT (cathode ray tube) or the program may be a BIOS 20.

[0010]

When the printer pallet register is assigned to the same I / O address as the display pallet register and the software sets the data in the display pallet register, the same data as the pallet register is assigned to the printer pallet register. Is also set. As a result, the color tone displayed on the display unit and the color tone printed on the printing paper match each other, even if the program is completely unaware of the color arrangement of the color printer.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

(First Embodiment) First, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a computer device with a color printer according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a computer device with a color printer, a computer device main body 2 and a color printer 3. Consists of.

The computer main body 2 includes a CPU (central processing unit) 4, a RAM (readable / writable memory) 5,
It has a display 6 and a display controller 7. CPU4
It controls the entire apparatus 1. The RAM 5 stores a program, and the CPU 4 controls the program based on the program. The display 6 is a CRT (cathode ray tube)
Etc., and displays various data on the screen. The display control unit 7 controls the display operation of the display unit 6, and includes a display palette register 8, a VRAM (video RAM) 9, and a multiplexer 10. The display pallet register 8 is a register into which data for determining the color tone to be displayed on the screen of the display 6 is written, and is a color tone control means. Image data to be displayed on the screen of the display 6 is written in the VRAM 9. Multiplexer 1
0 is a signal from the display palette register 8 and VRAM
The signal from 9 is synthesized to generate the signal to the display 6.

The color printer 3 has a printer palette register 11, a buffer 12, a printer engine 13 and a printer controller 14. The printer pallet register 11 is a register into which data for determining a color tone to be printed by the color printer 3 is written, and is a color tone control unit. The printer palette register 11 is write-only and cannot be read.
The buffer 12 temporarily stores the data sent from the CPU 4 of the computer main body 2. The printer engine 13 drives a print mechanism unit including a print head (not shown) and prints on a print sheet. The printer controller 14 temporarily stores the data sent from the CPU 4 in the buffer 12, and the data stored in the buffer 12 and the printer palette register 11
Data for printing is generated based on the data written in the printer engine 13, and the printer engine 13 uses the generated data.
The printing is performed while controlling the.

The CPU 4, the RAM 5, the display palette register 8, the VRAM 9, the printer palette register 11 and the printer controller 14 are the system bus 1
They are connected to each other via 5.

Next, the display operation of the computer device 1 with a color printer having the above-mentioned configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, in step S201, the CPU 4
Data is set in the display palette register 8 according to the program stored in the RAM 5. At this time, a certain I
Data is written to the / O (input / output) address,
Since the conventional software controls only the contents of the display palette register, the data is not set in the printer palette register.

On the other hand, in this embodiment, the display palette register 8 and the printer palette register 11 are
It is assigned to the same I / O address. As a result, the same data is written in the display palette register 8 and at the same time, the same data is written in the printer palette register 11.

Next, in step S202, the CPU 4
Writes the image data in the VRAM 9. Then, in the next step S203, the multiplexer 10 determines the color tone of each pixel based on the data written in the display palette register 8 and the data written in the VRAM 9, and generates a display signal. Then in step S204
Then, the CPU 4 sends the display signal to the display 6, displays the data on the screen, and then ends the processing operation.

Next, the printing operation of the color printer 3 of the computer device 1 with the color printer having the above-mentioned configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, in step S301, the CPU 4 reads image data from the VRAM 9 and sends it to the printer controller 14. Then, in the next step S302, the printer controller 14
The image data received from the VRAM 9 is temporarily stored in the buffer 12. Then, when the image data for a predetermined number of lines is accumulated, C is set in the next step S303.
The PU 4 converts the bit data into raster data necessary for printing and determines the color tone of each dot based on the data written in the printer palette register 11. Next, proceeding to step S304, the CPU 4 prints on the printing paper while controlling the printer controller 14, and then ends this processing operation.

In the above-described embodiment, the printer palette register 11 is made read-only so that it cannot be read. Therefore, when data is read from the I / O address, only the display palette register 8 responds. It is possible to prevent the display palette register 8 and the printer palette register 11 from conflicting with each other.

(Second Embodiment) First, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a computer device with a color printer according to the second embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the same parts as those in FIG. 1 of the first embodiment described above are designated by the same reference numerals. 4 is different from FIG. 1 in that the configuration of the computer main body 2 in FIG. 1 is a program (BIOS (B) which provides a basic input / output service.
asic Input Output Service
e) It is provided with the memory 16 storing 20. However, in the case of the present embodiment, the display palette register 8 and the printer palette register 11 may be assigned to different I / O addresses.

Next, the display operation of the computer device 1 with a color printer of this embodiment will be described with reference to the flow chart of FIG. First, the CPU 4 sets data in the display palette register 8. At this time, the data is not immediately written to the I / O address, but a request for data setting to the display palette register 8 and the printer palette register 11 is issued to the BIOS 20 stored in the memory 16. Then, the BIOS 20 first writes the data in the display palette register 8 in step S501, and then writes the data in the printer palette register 11 in step S502. As a result, the same data can be set in the display palette register 8 and the printer palette register 11.

Subsequent steps S503 to S50
Since the contents of the processing executed in 5 are the same as the steps S202 to S204 of FIG. 2 in the above-described first embodiment, the description thereof will be omitted.

The printing operation of the computer device 1 with a color printer according to the present embodiment is the same as that shown in FIG. 3 in the above-mentioned first embodiment, and therefore its explanation is omitted.

[0025]

As described in detail above, according to the computer device with a color printer of the present invention, the same tone as that displayed on the display means via the palette register can be obtained without changing the conventional software (application). The color tone can be printed by a color printer.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a computer device with a color printer according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a display operation of the device.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a printing operation of the apparatus.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a computer device with a color printer according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a display operation of the device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Computer device with color printer 2 Computer device main body 3 Color printer 4 CPU (data control means) 7 Display control unit (display control means) 8 Palette register for display 11 Printer palette register 14 (printer control means) 16 Memory (storage means )

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Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A computer device with a color printer comprising a color printer controlled by printer control means in a computer device body having display means controlled by display control means, wherein the display control means is provided with the color printer. A display pallet register in which data for determining the color tone to be displayed on the means screen is written,
The printer pallet register, which is added to the printer control means and in which the data for determining the color tone to be printed by the color printer is written, and the data written in the display pallet register and the data written in the printer pallet register are always the same. And a data control means for controlling so as to: 2. The color printer according to claim 1, wherein the data control means controls to write the data to the printer palette register and at the same time to write the data to the display palette register. Computer equipment. 3. The data control means first writes the data in the printer palette register,
2. The computer device with a color printer according to claim 1, further comprising controlling to write the data in the display palette register. 4. The color printer according to claim 3, further comprising a storage unit storing a program for providing a basic input / output service, wherein the data control unit controls based on the program. Computer equipment. 5. The computer device with a color printer according to claim 1, wherein the printer pallet register is write-only. 6. The computer device with a color printer according to claim 1, wherein the display means is a CRT (cathode ray tube). 7. The computer device with a color printer according to claim 4, wherein the program is a BIOS 20.