JPS59116840A - Parallel printing processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To print out the contents of CPU processing on the way to processing and to shorten a printing time when an output file is large by dividing the output file and printing by plural printers in parallel. CONSTITUTION:An information printing processing system is provided with plural sets of printers 111-113 and a printer controller 16 is connected to the respective printers 111-113 to perform printing control. Further, a storage part 13 is stored with the output file in logical block unit and a parallel printing discrimination part 14 discriminates whether logical blocks outputted from the storage part 13 is specified in parallel or not. A printer selector 15 refers to a device state flag 12 on the basis of this discrimination result to select the printers 111-113 which are usable for the next time, and informs the controller 16 of that. Then, parallel processing specification is sent from a CPU to the discrimination part 14 and selector 15, and the discrimination part 14 detect a logical block sectioning code to confirm that it is the parallelly processed block, performing parallel printing processing.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a parallel print processing method suitable for an information processing system including a plurality of printers such as a multi-mode system.

[Prior art and its problems]

In such an information processing system, the CPU transfers the output file to the printer buffer and gives a print command to the printer controller, so that the printer controller outputs the output file in the printer buffer to the printer for printing. At this time, if only one job (JOB) is running, that is, if there is only one output file, only one printer will be used to print out that output file, and the remaining printers will be stopped. It was hot. The above output file is job (JOB)
In some cases, a list is output for each logical group (logical block), such as by customer, and is formed by a collection of these. Therefore, if such output files were sequentially printed out using one printer as described above, it would be too time consuming.

Furthermore, as is well known, the printing speed of printers is significantly slower than CPU processing, so if the job is to be printed out from the printer at the same time as processing, the CPU will send the processing results to the printer buffer even if subsequent processing is performed. cannot be stored. For this reason, conventionally, the CPU was forced to wait during the printing period of the printer, and subsequent processing was stopped. Therefore, for this type of job, the CPU
Even if the processing speed itself is high, the processing speed of the system is limited by the printing speed of the printer, and the CP
U's processing ability could not be utilized effectively.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and its purpose is to:
Parallel printing allows you to divide an output file and output parallel printouts from multiple printers, and also allows CPU processing to continue while the processing contents are being printed out in the middle of CPU processing, thereby speeding up processing. The objective is to provide a processing method.

[Key points of the invention]

The present invention detects, in an information processing system equipped with a plurality of printers, a logical block delimiter P attached to a logical program taken out from a storage unit in which an output file having a logical block configuration is stored. In particular, the next available printer is determined by referring to the device status flags indicating the status of the plurality of printers, and the next logical block is output to the printer determined in this way. K
By doing this, the output files can be printed out in parallel from the plurality of printers for each logic program.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a portion directly related to the present invention of an information processing system such as a multi-mode system to which the present invention is applied.

111 to 113 are printers (in this example, there are three printers, but multiple printers may be used), and 12 is the status of these printers 111 to 113, for example, BUSY.
)/Ready (READY). 13 is the output file.

This is a storage unit such as a Zolinta output puffer in which (output records) are stored in units of logical blocks.

The block is logical and O8 (control program)
dynamically allocated/freed.

Reference numeral 14 denotes a parallel print identifying unit that identifies whether or not the logical block output from the storage unit 13 is a parallel print designated block. 15 is a printer selector (which selects and specifies the next available printer by referring to the device status 7 lag 12);
(hereinafter simply referred to as selector), 16 is the printer 11 to
113 is a printer controller (hereinafter simply referred to as controller) that controls printing.

Next, the operation of one embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b).
) and the timing chart of FIG. 3. Now, the CPU (not shown)
When the user program is executed, the output record is stored in storage unit 1.
3, and one logic block (logic blocker 1) is formed on the storage section 13. However, the CPU
A parallel print processing designation is issued. This designation is given to the parallel print identifying section 14 and selector 15. When the parallel printing identifying section 14 recognizes that parallel printing is to be performed for the user program, it notifies the controller 16 of the designation. Accordingly, the controller 16 takes out the logic program RI+1 from the storage unit 13 and outputs it to one of the printers 111 to 113, for example, the printer 111, and as shown in FIG. Print out the crucian carp 1.

On the other hand, when the parallel printing process designation is given, the parallel printing identification section 14 detects the logical block delimiter code attached to the logical block taken out from the storage section 13. This code is set, for example, in the print control information part, and when the code is detected when parallel print processing is specified, the parallel print identification unit 1
4 recognizes that the logical block is a block for parallel printing. In this example, when the logical block 4-1 is taken out from the storage section 13, the parallel printing identifying section 14 recognizes that it is a block for parallel printing. The parallel printing identification unit 14 then notifies the selector 15 that the parallel printing block has been output. The selector 15 is activated by K, and refers to the device status flag 12 to check which fIJ terminal is in the ready state. At this point, the printer Ilt is printing out logical block +1, so the status flag of the printer Ilt is set to the controller 16.
is set to indicate a busy state. Therefore, the selector 15 notifies the controller 16 of the printer number (device number) of the printer 112 next to the printer 111 as a printer for printing out the subsequent logical block (+2), and also notifies the parallel printing identification unit 14 of the completion of selection. Notice.

After forming the logical block +1, the CPU continues processing and processes the subsequent logical blocks, RI4P2. φ3. ... are sequentially formed on the storage unit 13 (see FIG. 2(a)). The controller 16 sends all logical blocks +1 to the printer 11! When the output is finished and the printer number is notified from the selector 15 (
If selected (designated), the next logical block +2 is taken out from the storage section 13 regardless of the operation of the printer 1c.

Then, the controller 16 divides the logical block by 2 into the usable printer selected and designated by the selector 15 (
In this example, the printer 112)K outputs, and the printer 1
1! As shown in Figure 3! ! & Ri Blockna 2
to be printed out.

On the other hand, the parallel printing identification unit 14 identifies the next logical block block 2 as a block for parallel printing by detecting the logical block delimiter code in the same way as in the case of the logic block 1 described above. The selector 15 is notified of this. As in the case described above, the selector 15 refers to the device status flag 12 to check for printers in a ready state (available printers). At this point, printer "1 # 112 is printing out logical blocks +1.+2 in parallel (see FIG. 3), and therefore the status flag of printer "1 r 112 is set to busy by controller 16. It is set to indicate the status. Therefore, the selector 15 notifies the controller 16 of the printer number of the printer 1C in the ready state as a printer for printing out the subsequent logical block (+3). The controller 16 sends all logical blocks +2 to the printer 11! When the output has been completed and the printer number has been notified from the selector 15, the storage unit 13
Extracts the next logical block number 3 from and outputs it to the printer of that printer number (printer 113 in this example),
The printer 113 prints out the logic block +3 as shown in FIG. 3 (9-). In addition, the controller 16 also controls the device status flag 12.
The status flag for the printer 113 in the printer 113 is set to indicate a busy status. However, the printers 111-11. As shown in FIG. 3, the logic processors 1 to 3 are printed out in parallel from the printers 111 to 113 in a parallel print output state.

On the other hand, the parallel printing identification section 14 is configured to include the above-mentioned logical block +
1. Similarly to the case of +2, logical block +3 is also identified as a block for parallel printing, and the selector 15 is notified of this fact. The selector 15 refers to the device status flag 12 and checks the printer in the ready state. If the printers 111 to 113 are in the parallel printing state, the corresponding printer does not exist, so the selector 15 checks the printers in the ready state. The above-mentioned check is repeated until one of them finishes printing and becomes ready. The controller 16 transfers all logical blocks (logical blocks≠3 in this example) to printers (in this example, printer JJ
, ), if printer number 10- has not been notified from the selector 15, the next logical block (logical block +4 in this example) is not taken out.

Eventually, as shown in FIG. 3, when the printer 111 finishes printing the logic block ≠ 1,
6 sets the printer 111 status flag of the device status flag 12 to indicate the ready status. As a result, the selector 15 detects that the printer 1c is available for use, and notifies the controller 16 of the corresponding printer number. Thereafter, the extraction and printing of subsequent logical blocks are repeated in the same manner as in the case described above. By the way, in this embodiment, for example, if the output record consisting of logical blocks ÷1 to ÷11 is larger than the storage area of the storage unit 13 (in FIG. (a storage example is shown), storage unit 13
For example, logical block +7
For ~4p11, the logical block≠6 is taken out from the storage unit 13 and then formed on the storage unit 13 by CPH as shown in FIG. 2(b).

Note that a subsequent logical block may be formed in the empty area in parallel with the extraction of the logical block.

This is particularly effective when a logical block can be handled as a fixed size, such as one page.

Next, the case of normal print specification will be briefly explained. In this case, the parallel printing identifying section 14 does not perform the identifying operation, and therefore the selector 15 does not notify the printer number. Then, the controller 16 transfers one output record (output file) to only one of the plurality of printers (printer 111 in this example) in order from top to bottom, as in the conventional case.

In the above embodiment, the parallel printing process designation is given by the CPU, but the designation may be made by operating a switch, for example. In this case, the CPU sends a common print specification for parallel printing/normal printing (
It is sufficient that at least a print command (print command) is given to the controller 16.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the logical block has been described as having a logical block delimiter record attached to it, but if the logical block has a fixed size, such as one page, page information is attached to the delimiter record. It may be used instead. Furthermore, if parallel printing processing is required, a specific code indicating a block for parallel printing may be set as a specific delimiter record for each logical block when generating an output record. In this case, the parallel printing process designation is not necessarily necessary, and it is sufficient if a common print designation for parallel printing/normal printing is given to at least the controller 16.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, the following effects can be achieved.

1) Output files can be divided and printed in parallel from multiple printers.

1i) Therefore, when the output file is large, the printing time can be reduced to at most 1/number of printers compared to the conventional method.

13-ifi) The CPU processing can be continued even while the processing contents are being printed out in the middle of the CPU processing.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is a storage state diagram of logical blocks in the storage section in the above embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a timing chart for explaining the operation. 111-1c...Printer, 12...Device status flag, 13...Storage unit, 14...Parallel printing identification unit, 15...Printer selector, 16...Printer controller. Applicant's agent Patent attorney Takehiko Suzue 14-

Claims (1)

[Claims] In an information processing system equipped with multiple printers, C
A storage unit that stores output files created by PU processing, a device status flag that indicates the status of the multiple printers mentioned above, and a device status flag that refers to the device status flag at startup to select the next available printer. a selection means to specify;
In response to a print command, the first logical block of the output file is retrieved from the storage section and printed using one of the plurality of printers, and when a printer is selected by the selection means I, means for fetching a subsequent logical block of the output file from the storage section and printing it using the printer specified by the selection means; and the logical block fetched from the storage section by this means. and a means for activating the selection means (by detecting a logical program and delimiter code attached to the output file), so that the output file is processed in parallel by the plurality of printers in units of logical blocks. A parallel printing processing method featuring: