JPH0823740B2 - Font control method in terminal system - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Use of the Invention] The present invention relates to an output device (for example, a printing device, a character display, etc.) that expresses visible information such as characters and figures based on predetermined font data. ),
In particular, it relates to the handling of font data when a plurality of devices of this type are controlled by a single controller.

[Background of the Invention]

With regard to display terminals, various methods of dynamic font loading have been already proposed for the purpose of saving the capacity of the font memory (pattern memory for character generator) of the terminal device (JP-A-55-80143).
No. 58-106634, etc.). This is characterized in that the control device common to a plurality of terminal devices always holds a complete set of font data, and only the necessary part is transferred to each terminal device depending on the situation.

On the other hand, it is already known that, mainly for a printing terminal, a plurality of receiving buffers are provided to improve the efficiency, and the contents of a certain receiving buffer are printed at the same time as reception to another receiving buffer ( JP-A-57-161926 and JP-A-58-11
7036, etc.).

If both technologies are simply put together and the effect of saving the font memory capacity by the dynamic font loading and the efficiency improvement by the parallel processing of the reception and the output are additively enjoyed, special measures are required. Will not. However, if more than the additive effect can be obtained by organically combining the two, it will be a very useful technique.

[Object of the Invention]

An object of the present invention is to provide a font control method in a terminal system, which not only improves the processing efficiency by parallel processing of reception and output in block units but also further increases the effect of saving font memory capacity by dynamic font loading. To do.

[Outline of Invention]

The present invention organically links the management of a memory block for parallel processing of reception and output on a block-by-block basis and the management of the replacement of font data for dynamic font loading, thereby providing a dynamic font. Improves loading efficiency significantly more than it would by itself. That is, according to the present invention, in the control device, each position of the font memory of each terminal device is recorded which one of the plurality of memory blocks and which data stores necessary font data, and This record is updated each time the output of the contents of each memory block is completed. The newly needed font data can be transferred from the control unit to a font memory location storing font data which is not used by any data in any of the memory blocks. As a result, the contents of the font memory of the terminal device are frequently updated as needed at each point in time, so that the effective use of the font memory having a small capacity is realized.

Example of Invention

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of a printing terminal system as an example of a terminal system to which the present invention is applied. The control device 1 is
It is connected to a plurality of printing terminal devices 2, 2a to 2n by a local communication path 3, and is also connected to a host computer via a communication line 16. The control device 1 includes a microcomputer (μcpu) 11, a memory (MEM) 12, a terminal connection adapter (TA) 13, a floppy disk adapter (FDA) 14, and a host communication adapter (C) interconnected by an internal bus 10.
A) equipped with 15. TA13 is also connected to the local communication path 3, GDA14 is connected to the floppy disk (FD) 141,
The CA 15 is connected to the communication line 16. The terminal device 2 is a microcomputer (μcp) interconnected by an internal bus 20.
u) 21, memory (MEM) 22, controller connection adapter (TC
A) 23 and a printer adapter (PRA) 24. PRA2
4 is further connected to a printer (PR) 25, and TCA 23 is connected to the local communication path 3. The terminal devices 2a to 2n are similar to the terminal device 2.

Print data from the host computer is sent via the communication line 16
It is given to the control device 1 via the above, undergoes the processing described later here, and then sent to the designated terminal device. For this processing, the MEM 12 and the MEM 22 include various tables described later. The processing of print data including the operation of these tables, the communication between the control device 1 and the terminal devices 2 to 2n (hereinafter represented by the terminal device 2), and the control of other operations are performed by the μcpu11
And μcpu21, and the programs therefor are stored in MEM12 and MEM22, respectively.

FIG. 1 schematically shows a table group used in the present invention. The MEM 12 of the control device 1 includes a single character generation unit including a kanji address table (CGATBL) 100 and a main font memory (CGBUF) 101, an internal code table (CDTBL) 102 provided for each terminal device 2 to 2n, and A font control table (USGTBL) 103. If each font character in this embodiment is a 24 × 24 dot pattern, the CGBUF 101 holds the character pattern data F _{0 to} F _x consisting of 72 bytes per character at the addresses FA _{0 to} FA _x . . The types of characters held here are all the characters required for the system (for example, about 8000 types including JIS first and second level character sets and user-set characters). CGATBL100 holds these addresses FA ₀ ~FA _x, to the address corresponding to the kanji code CD ₀ ~CD _x. These table data are stored in the FD141 during the system inactive period, and are stored in the FD141 and the MEM12 when the control device 1 is powered on.
Transferred to. The CDTBL102 and USGTBL103 will be described after the table of the terminal device.

The MEM 22 of the terminal device 2 includes a data memory 200, a font memory 201, and a block management table 202. The data memory 200 can be disassembled into a plurality of blocks (eight in this embodiment), and one block of print data from the control device 1 is stored in each block. Block management table
Reference numeral 202 is a table for managing various blocks of the data memory 200, and stores the statuses ST _{0 to} ST ₇ of the blocks and the block addresses n _{0 to} n ₇ at the addresses corresponding to the blocks 0 to 7. The statuses ST _{0 to} ST ₇ represent states such as “neutral”, “data transfer in progress”, “printing waiting”, “printing”, “end report” and the like. Block address n _{0 to} n ₇
Indicates the end point address of each block. The start address of the block is the start of the data memory in block 0,
In other blocks, "1" is added to the end point address of the block immediately before it. The font memory 201 holds the patterns F _{p to} F _y of the characters of the font sent from the control device 1 as described later at the address corresponding to the internal Kanji code. In this embodiment, the internal kanji code is 0-10.
23. The Kanji code in the print data from the host computer is converted into the internal Kanji code by the control device 1 as described later.

The CDTBL 102 of the control device 1 holds the Kanji code associated with the internal Kanji code at addresses corresponding to the internal Kanji codes 0 to 1023. The USGTBL 103 holds information indicating in which block of the data memory 200 the internal Kanji code is used, corresponding to the internal Kanji code 0 to 1023. That is, each entry has bits 20 to 27 corresponding to blocks ⁰ to ⁷ , and if the bit is "1", the corresponding block is using the internal Kanji code, and if it is "0", If not, it indicates that it is not used.

The operation of the control device 1 is shown in the flow chart of FIG. 3, and the operation of the terminal device 2 is shown in the flow chart of FIG. Now, it is assumed that the kanji code CD _m represents "Kan" and CD _n represents "character". Also, font memory 201 and C
The DTBL 102 is empty, and all blocks in the data memory 200 are in a "neutral" state, thus
It is also assumed that the contents of USGTBL103 are all "0".

When the control device 1 receives the first block of print data from the host computer, the block management table 202
Status ST ₀ of the terminal device 2 is changed to “data transfer in progress” and the received print data is stored in the data memory of the terminal device 2.
The data is transferred to 200 in order from the first address (Fig. 3C).
1). Data other than Kanji code is transferred as is (C2). When the Kanji code CD _m 300 is detected in the print data during this transfer process, the CDTBL 102 is searched (C3). If it turns out that CD _m does not exist, USGTBL103
Is searched for, and one of the internal kanji codes "n" which is not used by any of blocks ⁰ to ⁷ (20 to 27 are all "0") is determined according to an appropriate algorithm. (C4). Then, enter the address corresponding to “n” in CDTBL102.
CD _m is written (C5), then the address FA _{m of} CGBUF101 corresponding to CD _m is taken out from CGATBL100, and using this, the character pattern 301 of “Chinese” is further read out from CGBUF101, and the terminal device 2 And is written to the address corresponding to “n” in the font memory 201 (C6). The data memory 200, instead of the CD _m, internal kanji code "n" is transferred (C7), 2 ⁰ entries corresponding to "n" of USGTBL103
The bit is set to "1" indicating that it is in use (C
8).

On the other hand, if the result of the CDTBL search at step C3 reveals that the Chinese character code CD _m exists (for example, when CD _m is received again), the internal code corresponding to the address where the CD _m is held. The kanji code "n" is transferred to the data memory 200 (C7) instead of the CD _m , and the corresponding bit of the USGTBL is set to "1", and this kanji code processing is completed.

When the transfer of the print data of block 0 is completed, in the entry corresponding to block 0 in the block management table 202, the end address field is set to the final address n ₀ of the data block that has just been transferred, and the status ST _{0 is set} to " Change to "Waiting for printing" (C9). After this,
The controller 1 waits for the transfer of the next block from the host computer, and when the next block is received, repeats the above operation. In this process, when a new Kanji code is received in step C4, the result of the search of USGTBL103 is
When all the internal kanji codes are found to be in use, the transfer of print data is suspended and the
Wait for the report that the printing of the block being printed is completed.

In the terminal device 2, when the status ST ₀ of the block 0 in the block management table 202 is set to “print waiting” in step C9 of FIG. 3, the terminal device 2 sets the status ST ₀ at the start of printing. While changing to "printing", the end point address n ₀ is read and stored in an appropriate register (T1). Then the data memory 20
Data is sequentially read from the start address of 0 and sent to PR25 via PRA24. In this process, when the internal kanji code “n” is detected, the address corresponding to “n” in the font memory 201 is accessed, and the character pattern 302 of “kanji” corresponding to the internal kanji code “n” is generated. It is read and sent to PR25 (T2). Codes other than internal Kanji codes (alphanumeric and kana codes, etc.) are printed by the normal method by referring to other built-in fixed font memory (T3). After printing block 0, block management table 20
The status ST ₀ of 2 is changed to "end report" (T4),
If the status ST ₁ of the next block is “waiting for printing”, the above process is repeated for the next block.

Connexion back to Figure 3, the status ST ₀ of block management table 202 to show "end report in", is detected by the control unit 1, all 2 ⁰ bits in USGTBL103 indicates unused " It is reset to 0 "(C10), and the status ST ₀ is also changed to" neutral "(C
11). Here, if the data transfer of another block is suspended, USGTBL103 is searched again (C4). As a result, if "n" is obtained again as an internal kanji code that is not used at that time, the kanji code CD _{m at} the address corresponding to "n" of the CDTBL102 is the waiting kanji code CD _n. It is replaced with 310 (C5). Next, the address FA _{n of} CGBUF 101 corresponding to CD _n is read from CGATBL 100, the character pattern “letter” 311 corresponding to CD _n is read from CGBUF 101 using this, and the font memory 20 of the terminal device 2 is read.
In 1, the contents of the address corresponding to the internal kanji code “n” are replaced (C6). This newly defined internal kanji character code "n" is transferred to the data memory 200, and thereafter, the same processing as described above is repeated.

In addition to the Chinese character pattern, the font data may include a graphic element pattern for graphic output.
Further, in the above-described embodiment, the block division of the print data is already performed by the host computer, but the control device 1 divides the print data continuously sent from the host computer into appropriate lengths. Internal blocks may be formed. The block management described above by the block management table 202 allows the formation of internal blocks of arbitrary length. The number (type) of font patterns that can be stored in the font memory 201 is half or more of the maximum block size (byte), assuming that the internal Kanji code is formed by 2 bytes.

Further, the present invention is applicable not only to the printing terminal system but also to the display terminal system.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the present invention, two effects of efficiency improvement by parallel processing of reception and output in block units and saving of the font memory capacity in the terminal device by dynamic font loading may not simply be added. Instead, by utilizing the former block-based processing to update the contents of the font memory block by block, further saving of the font memory capacity, in other words, more diverse characters by the constant capacity of the font memory is achieved. Output of symbols, figures, etc. is achieved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of various tables related to the present invention, and FIG.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a printing terminal system as an example of the application of the present invention, FIG. 3 is a flow chart of processing in a control device according to the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a flow chart of processing in a terminal device according to the present invention. is there. 12 …… control device memory, 22 …… terminal device memory, 25
…… Printer, 100 …… Kanji address table, 101 ……
Main font table, 102 ... Internal code table, 103
...... Font control table, 200 ...... Data memory, 201
…… Font memory, 202 …… Block management table.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A control device for holding all used font data, a data memory which can be divided into a plurality of blocks for respectively storing output data blocks, and a font memory for storing a part of the font data. In a terminal system having a plurality of terminal devices capable of concurrently performing reception and output of output data in block units, a plurality of data memories from the control device are performed by the control device for each terminal device. A transfer step of transferring the font data generated during the transfer of the output data block to one of the blocks of the memory to an unused location of the font memory, and for each location in the font memory held there. The control device displays a usage display indicating whether or not each block of the data memory is using the font data that is present. Font control method in a terminal system including a used display setting process, and a use display reset process for resetting the use indication of the data memory bromide attaches to the end of the output from each block of the data memory to be set in the table. 2. The transfer process according to claim 1, wherein an internal code corresponding to a position in the font memory to which the font data is transferred is assigned to an output data code corresponding to the font data. Recording the correspondence relationship of the above in another table in the control device and replacing the output data code with the internal data code. Setting of the use display and use display resetting process in the use display setting process. The method of resetting the usage display in step (1) is executed as setting and resetting of the usage display for the internal code. 3. The transfer process according to claim 2, wherein the transfer process includes a process of checking the correspondence between the recorded internal code and the output data code, and an internal code assigned to the output data code being processed. When the output data code is replaced with the internal code, and when the assigned internal code does not exist, the usage indication is checked and an internal code which is not used by data in any data memory block is assigned. Transferring the font data corresponding to the output data code to a position in the font memory corresponding to the internal code, and the use display setting process replaces the output data code with the internal code already assigned. Is set or the internal code is newly assigned, the use display is set. A font control method in a terminal system.