JPH0768864A - Composite device of printer/facsimile - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automatically receive printing data and facsimile data by monitoring the incoming signal conditions of a printer interface and a facsimile interface and controlling one of incoming signals by the other incoming signal. CONSTITUTION:An incoming signal controlling unit 1 always monitors a reception permission signal request signal 1a from a printer I/F 10 and from a facsimile I/F 20 in an idle state of a device and monitors the incoming signals of respective data. The incoming signal controlling unit 1 recognizes the incoming signal to either the printer I/F 20 or to the facsimile I/F 20 and sets either one of them in a restricted state of the incoming signals at a point of time when reception is started. The restricted state of the incoming signals is continued until an incoming signal control release request signal is transmitted from each interface and, when the incoming signal request signal 1a is received, the incoming signal controlling unit 1 outputs an incoming signal permission signal 1b to each of the terfaces 10, 20 if they are not in the restricted state of the incoming signals. By temporarily storing printing data in a reception memory 2, the reduction and the like of the time of transmitting the printing data between the device and a host device 19 become possible.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a combined printer / facsimile apparatus, and more particularly to a combined printer / facsimile apparatus for automatically receiving print data and facsimile data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional printer / facsimile combined apparatus, reception of print data or facsimile data is manually set, and only the set data is received.

[0003]

In the above-mentioned conventional technique, it is necessary to manually set which one is to be received when the print data is received by the printer or when the facsimile data is received by the facsimile. There was the inconvenience of being inconvenient.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to improve the inconvenience of the conventional example, and in particular to provide a printer / facsimile combined apparatus capable of automatically switching between incoming of print data and facsimile data. To do.

[0005]

According to the present invention, a printer interface for receiving print data from a host device,
A facsimile interface for receiving facsimile data via a telephone line or the like, a reception memory for temporarily storing the received print data or facsimile data,
A print data drawing unit for reading the print data from the receiving memory, expanding the image data into image data, and then drawing the image data; and a facsimile data drawing unit for reading the facsimile data from the receiving memory, converting the image data into image data, and drawing the image data in the image memory, A print output unit that prints the image image stored in the image memory is provided, and an incoming call control unit that monitors the incoming call status of the printer interface and the facsimile interface and restricts the incoming call to the other, etc. Is adopted. This aims to achieve the above-mentioned object.

[0006]

When print data is transmitted from the host device 19, the printer interface (printer I / F) 10
Requests reception permission from the incoming call control unit 1. The incoming call control unit 1 permits the printer I / F 10 to receive data if it is not in the incoming call restriction state. Upon receiving this permission, the printer I / F 10 starts reception and stores the print data in the reception memory 2. When this reception starts, the incoming call control unit sets each interface to the incoming call restriction state and activates the print data drawing unit 11. The print data drawing unit 11 reads the print data from the reception memory 2, develops it into image data, and then draws this image data in the image memory 3. When all the print data in the reception memory 2 is read by the print data drawing unit 11, the printer I
/ F10 requests the incoming call control unit 1 to release the incoming call restriction. The print output unit 4 prints out the image data stored in the image memory 3.

Further, when the facsimile data is transmitted from the facsimile device 29 through the telephone line, the facsimile interface (facsimile I / F) 29 requests the incoming call control unit 1 for the reception permission. The incoming call control unit 1 permits the facsimile I / F to receive data if it is not in the incoming call restriction state.
The facsimile I / F 10 starts reception and stores the facsimile data in the reception memory 2. When this reception starts, the incoming call control unit sets each interface to the incoming call restriction state and activates the facsimile data drawing unit 21. The facsimile controller reads the print data from the receiving memory 2 and converts it into image data, and then draws this image data in the image memory 3. When the facsimile data drawing unit 21 reads all the print data in the reception memory 2, the facsimile I / F 10 requests the incoming call control unit 1 to release the incoming call restriction. The print output unit 4 prints out the image data stored in the image memory 3.

[0008]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the first embodiment. The printer / facsimile compound device 30 includes a printer interface 10 for receiving print data from a host device 19 and facsimile data via a telephone line or the like. A facsimile interface 20 for receiving a print data, a receiving memory 2 for temporarily storing the received print data or facsimile data, and a print data drawing for reading the print data from the receiving memory 2 and developing the print data into image data and then drawing the image data in the image memory 3. And a facsimile data drawing unit 21 for reading the facsimile data from the receiving memory 2 and converting it into image data, and then drawing it in the image memory 3.
And a print output unit 4 for printing out the image image stored in the image memory 3.

Further, the printer / facsimile multifunction device 30 is equipped with an incoming call control section for monitoring incoming call conditions of the printer interface 10 and the facsimile interface 20 and limiting incoming calls of one side to incoming calls of the other side.

To explain this in detail, the incoming call control unit 1
Is the printer I / F1 in the idle state of the apparatus.
0 and the reception permission request signal 1a from the facsimile I / F 20 are monitored to monitor the incoming of each data. The incoming call control unit 1 recognizes incoming data of either the printer I / F 10 or the facsimile I / F 20,
The incoming call restriction state is set when reception starts.

This incoming call restriction state continues until an incoming call control cancellation request signal is transmitted from each interface. When the incoming call request signal 1a is received, the incoming call control unit 1 sends the incoming call permission signal 1b to each interface 1 if it is not in the incoming call restriction state.
Output to 0 and 20.

Further, by temporarily storing the print data in the reception memory 2, the transmission time of the print data with the host device 19 can be shortened and the host device 19 can be released early without being restricted until the end of the print output. Etc.

The print data drawing unit 11 reads the print data stored in the reception memory 6, develops it into image data, and then draws it in the image memory 3. The print data is a set of control codes for controlling the printer / facsimile composite apparatus, and the print data, which is the control code, is expressed by a command portion and a data portion. For example, in the case of printing a sentence, it is composed of a character code which is a data part and a printer control command which is a command part. The printer control command is, for example, a line feed command, a page break command, a character type setting command, or the like. The print data drawing unit 11 analyzes the control code of the print data and develops it into image data according to the resolution of the print output unit 4. The image data is bitmap data and one page is drawn in the image memory 3.

The facsimile I / F 20 is equipped with a modem when the connected line is a telephone network and a DSU when it is a digital network. The facsimile I / F 20 demodulates the signal converted for the transmission path received from the line, stores it in the reception memory 2, and activates the facsimile data drawing unit 21.

The facsimile data drawing unit 21 decodes the encoded facsimile data, converts it into image data, and stores it in the upper image memory 3.

The print output unit 7 uses the print data drawing unit 11 or the facsimile data drawing unit 5 to generate the image memory 3.
The image data drawn in is read and printed out on a medium. Here, the printing unit output unit 7 is a laser printer that exposes a photoconductor surface with a laser beam to form an electrostatic image, and attaches toner to this image to develop it, melts it with heat or pressure, and fixes it on paper. However, the present invention is not limited to the specific example of the printing unit output unit 7.

As described above, according to the first embodiment, the incoming call restriction state is automatically set by the incoming print data or the incoming fax data. For this reason, it is clarified whether the printer functions as a printer or a facsimile upon reception of data. By this, in order to realize print output of print data and print output of facsimile data with one device, a memory and an output are required. It is possible to share the print output unit, which is a device.

Since the incoming call is automatically restricted, the two types of data are automatically received, and the operability is greatly improved. In particular, when functioning as a facsimile, facsimile data can be reliably received even if the user is absent.

Next, a second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

In the second embodiment, the receiving memory 2 is provided with a receiving memory control unit 5 for grasping the remaining capacity of the receiving memory when the reception of print data or facsimile data is completed and for allocating the memory for the next incoming call. is doing. Other configurations are similar to those of the first embodiment.

This will be described in detail. Print data drawing unit 11, facsimile data drawing unit 21, and print output unit 4
The receiving speed of each interface 10 and 20 is faster than the operating speed of the above, and the receiving memory 2 is provided in order to transmit / receive print data or facsimile data in a short time. If it is facsimile data, it can be stored in units of 100 pages by setting the receiving memory to several megabytes (MB), and if the print data is, for example, printing only characters, it can store more pages than the facsimile data. is there.

Further, in the first embodiment, each of the interfaces 10 and 20 sends an incoming call control release request signal to the incoming call control unit because all the data stored in the receiving memory are taken out by the drawing units 11 and 21. It was outputting to 1. Therefore, during the period from the end of reception to the end of print output, each interface is able to receive, but reception is restricted by the incoming call control unit 1.

In the second embodiment, each interface 10,
An object of the present invention is to provide a printer / facsimile composite apparatus capable of receiving the next data upon completion of the reception of 20 data and automatically switching between incoming of print data and facsimile data.

In the second embodiment, the receiving memory 2 is provided with a receiving memory controller 5 for allocating the areas of the receiving memory 2 to the interfaces 10 and 20 and managing the addresses of the receiving memory 2.

When the storage of the data received by each of the interfaces 10 and 20 into the reception memory 2 is completed, the reception memory control unit 5 obtains the final address 2b of the stored reception memory 2 and the reception memory control unit 5 Grasps the area in which the received data is stored and the unused area, and then outputs the start address 2a of the unused area to the incoming call control unit 1, and the incoming call control unit 1 sends the next reception permission request signal 1a. When output from each of the interfaces 10 and 20, the reception permission signal 1b is output to each of the interfaces 10 and 20 together with the start address 2a. When all the received data is output by the print output unit 4, the reception buffer control unit 5 allocates the area in which the data is stored so as to be continued to the unused area.

As described above, according to the second embodiment, it is possible to shorten the waiting time related to reception by making the most effective use of the receiving memory. Can be done.

[0028]

Since the present invention is constructed and functions as described above, according to this, the incoming call control unit monitors the reception of print data or facsimile data and limits one incoming call to the other incoming call. It is possible to print out two different types of data using the hardware resources of the product without re-setting. Also, by automatically limiting the incoming call, the reception of print data or facsimile data is automated. It is possible to provide an unprecedented excellent printer / facsimile composite apparatus capable of significantly improving the printer performance.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 incoming call control section 1a reception permission request signal 1b reception permission signal 2 reception memory 2a start address 2b final address 3 image memory 4 print output section 5 reception memory control section 10 printer interface (printer I / F) 11 print data drawing section 15 upper level Device 20 Facsimile interface (facsimile I /
F) 21 Facsimile data drawing unit

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A printer interface for receiving print data from a host device, and a facsimile interface for receiving facsimile data via a telephone line or the like.
A receiving memory that temporarily stores the received print data or facsimile data, a print data drawing unit that reads the print data from the receiving memory, develops it into image data, and then draws it in the image memory, and reads the facsimile data from the receiving memory. And a print output unit for printing the image image stored in the image memory, and monitoring the incoming status of the printer interface and the facsimile interface. A printer / facsimile compound apparatus comprising an incoming call control unit for restricting incoming calls to the other by receiving one call. 2. The receiving memory is provided with a receiving memory control unit for recognizing the remaining capacity of the receiving memory when receiving the print data or the facsimile data and allocating the memory for the next incoming call. The printer / facsimile composite apparatus according to claim 1.