JPS59214673A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To raise the average printing speed of a printer as well as raise the efficiency of printing for portions where the frequency of printing is high by making the interval of plural printing heads mounted on a carrier. CONSTITUTION:Printing heads of N-numbers are mounted on a carrier at an interval of l-digit meeting M/N>l, where M is digit for maximal printing width of one line. The position of final printing digit of printing data received by a buffer 5 is judged by a discriminator 7, and when it exceed NXl digit, the printing data are dividedly supplied to printing heads of N-numbers till NXl digit, and the carrier is moved for printing. Printing, after NXl+1 digit, is made only by the printing head H4 at the tip of the carrier.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Technical Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer that prints by moving a print head.

(bl Prior Art and Problems In a printer that prints by moving a carrier on which a print head is attached in the left-right direction, there is a remarte head system that is one way to improve the printing speed.
For example, in a line printer of 136 digits), N (for example 4) print heads are M/N (1,36/4=
34) If you use carriers arranged at digit intervals, you can simply move this carrier by 34 digits in the left and right direction,
Finish printing all digits (136 digits). With this method,
Printing speed will be increased by 4 times 1. In printers that print horizontally written Bunka, etc., not all digits are printed in every print line, and the printing is usually offset to the left (toward the print start position). There are many things to do. Therefore, in the above multi-head printer, N print heads are connected to M/N(
=34) By using carriers arranged at intervals smaller than the digits, it is possible to further improve the printing speed.

(C1 Purpose of the Invention The present invention has focused on the above points, and aims to provide a printer that improves printing efficiency.

(dl Structure of the Invention The present invention has a carrier on which a print head is attached, and a buffer for receiving print data for one line, and the maximum print width of one line is up to M digits, and the above-mentioned In a printer that prints by moving the carrier within a print width and supplying print data in the buffer to a print head corresponding to a digit position of the buffer, the number of N print heads is less than M÷N. disposed on the carrier at L digit intervals, further comprising means for determining the final print digit position of the print data received in the buffer, when the final print position of the print data in the buffer exceeds NXL digits and is received. At the time, the print data in the buffer is supplied to the print head corresponding to the digit position in the buffer within the range of moving the carrier to the digit, and then printing is performed beyond the above digit. The printer is characterized in that the carrier is moved and the unprinted data is supplied to a print head corresponding to the position of the unprinted data in the buffer and printed.As described above, the present invention is capable of printing, for example, In a carrier moving type line printer, four print heads have carriers arranged at 25-digit intervals, and when the number of received print data is 100 digits or less, the print data is distributed and supplied to the four print heads. , move the carrier and print.

On the other hand, if the number of received print data exceeds i o o 4ia, printing up to the 100th digit will be performed in exactly the same way as the above printing, and when printing after the 100th digit, The print data of the part exceeding 100 digits is
After supplying it to the print head (the print head installed at the head in the direction of movement of the carrier), the carrier is subsequently moved and printed 1. This makes it possible to improve the average printing speed of the printer.

(el Embodiment of the Invention FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of the present invention. The embodiment is a printer with a maximum printable digit number of 136 digits. Move the carrier 1 in the right direction in FIG. 1. Printing is performed by moving the carrier, and this carrier 1 has four print heads (
(hereinafter referred to as head) H4 to HJE, equally spaced (t = 25
digits). Therefore, when this carrier is moved 25 places to the right, four helads H, ~H4
This allows printing of 100 digits. In the present invention, printing up to the 100th digit is performed using four heads H8 to H4,
When it is necessary to print digits after the 1oJ digit, head H4 is used to print.

In FIG. 1, print data D is sent out line by line from the processor 2. Based on the character code C (not shown) in the received print data D, the reception control section 3 extracts a character font F corresponding to the character code from the character generator 4 and stores it in the memory section 1 of the buffer 5. Store in. At the same time, the reception control unit 3 increments the counter 6 by one.

Therefore, the counter 6 counts the number of characters in the received data D. In this way, the buffer 5 stores the character phono F corresponding to each character code (C) of the received data D.
(F) are sequentially stored from the memory section m1. When the reception of the print data D (one line) is completed 17, the determination unit 7 determines the count value of the counter 6 (for example, if the count value is "120")
, that is, the number of characters of the received data D is r120J)L, and then the drive section 8 and the control section 9 are notified of the end of reception. The control section 9 performs control to supply the print phono (F) of the memory sections In, ~m4 of the buffer 5 to the heads H1 to H4, respectively, while the drive section 8 issues a start signal ST, so that the motor 10 is started. This is sikarya
1 is moved to the right and printing is started. in this case,
The printing range of each of the four heads H1 to H4 is the number of printing digits A1 to A4, as shown on paper 11.
Both are 25 digits long. Therefore, head H4 of carrier 1
When reaches position B (the position where sensor S is located), 100
Printing of digits is completed. In other words, printing using the character font F in the memory sections 1111 to m4 of the buffer 5 (in which 100 digits of character phono F are stored) is completed. Note that the remaining 20 digits (120 digits - 10
Character font F for 0 digits is stored. sensor S
When detects that carrier 1 reaches tji, B,
This is notified to the control unit 9. The control section 9 supplies character 7 (on) F (for 20 characters) in the memory section m of the buffer 5 to only the head H, and cuts off the supply of character fonts to the other heads H1 to H3. After passing position B, gear 1 moves to the right and continues printing, but at this point [B and subsequent 20 digits of characters are printed only by head H4. Note that the rotary plate 12 in FIG. 1 is provided with a slit, and when this rotates in conjunction with the motor 10, the intermittent light from the lamp 13 is detected by the detection unit 14. Printing control by the driving section 8 and the control section 9 is performed by the pulses P, , P2, . . . generated from the section 14.

FIG. 2 is a data block diagram illustrating the buffer 5 in FIG. 1. The buffer 5 has a character capacity of 136 digits, and when 80 digits of character data are input as shown in the figure, the characters are sequentially stored starting from the memory section m. When the number of received data is "80", data is written up to the digit position (80) of the memory section m4 as shown in the figure (indicated by diagonal lines). As explained in FIG. 1, the buffer 5 contains
The character phono) F from the character generator 4 is written. Third
The figure is a data block diagram illustrating details of data in the buffer 5. In Figure 3(a), the number of fonts for one character is <38 (24X16) as shown in Figure 3(b).
It is 4 dots. Therefore, the memory part m of the buffer 5 is
Column numbers CN, ~CN4o. , memory part m2 is CN4
Q1~CNAoo, memory part mIl is CN801~CN
12o0. Memory part m is CN+2oo -CNtao
o + and memory part m! I is after CN+ao+. .

Referring again to FIG. 1, the control section 9 controls the reading of the character font F from the buffer 5 and supplying it to the head HI" H4 by the pulse (P,) from the detection section 14.

P2...). FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating the printing control operation in detail.

In FIG. 4, LF is a line feed code, FIT' is a 7-ohm feed code, and VT is a vertical tab code. Also, ■ is the first pulse P1 + ■ is the second pulse P2
... indicates that it will be processed.

ff) Effects of the Invention As described above, the present invention improves the printing efficiency in the portion where printing is frequently performed (on the left) by narrowing the spacing between the plurality of print heads disposed on the carrier, and thereby improves printing efficiency. This has the advantage of improving the average printing speed of the printer.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram explaining one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
Figure 3 is a data block diagram explaining one example of the present invention, and Figure 4 is a flowchart explaining an embodiment of the present invention, and the symbols used in the figures are as follows. . 1 is a carrier, 2 is a processor, 3 is a reception control unit, 4 is a character generator, 5 is a buffer, 6 is a counter, 7 is a discrimination unit, 8 is a drive unit, 9 is a control Q1 unit, 1° is a motor, 11 is paper, 12 is a rotating plate, 13 is a lamp, 14 is a detection unit, A,
, A2. As = A4, A! l is the number of printing digits B
is the digit position, cNfl: column number, D is the print data, F
, F is the character font, )ll g H2r H3
HH4 is the print head, t is the head spacing, ml, H1
□9m. m4, m is the memory section, P + P+ * P2
e P4O10 is a pulse, S is a sensor, and ST is a start signal. Country 2 Figure “l”2 m3 ml m5
Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] It has a carrier on which a print head is attached, and a buffer for receiving print data for one line, and the maximum print width of one line is up to M digits, and the carrier is moved within the print width, and the In a printer that prints by supplying print data in a buffer to print heads corresponding to the digit positions of the buffer, N print heads are divided by M÷N.
The carrier is further provided with means for determining the final print digit position of the print data received in the buffer, and the final print position of the print data in the buffer exceeds NXL digits. When the data is received, the print data in the buffer is supplied to the print head corresponding to the digit position in the buffer within the range of moving the carrier to the previous digit, and then printing is performed on the next digit. 2. A printer characterized in that: (1) the printer moves the printer over the printer, supplies the unprinted data to a print head corresponding to the position of the unprinted data in the buffer, and prints the unprinted data;