JPS61135776A - Serial impact type printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable the enhancement of the use efficiency of a printing ribbon and the uniformization of the density of a printed character, by providing a memory means for storing hammer pressure information and ribbon feed information. CONSTITUTION:When a printing character code such as an ASCII code is inputted from an input line DI, an objective position address code showing the position of the type on a type wheel is outputted from the output line D2 of ROMI. This code is applied to a rotary wheel control circuit 3 and compared with the content of a present position counter and the type wheel is rotated until both of them coincide to select the type corresponding to the inputted printing character code. At the same time, this code is inputted to ROM2 in which ribbon feed amount indication information and hammer pressure information are stored and the address thereof is indicated to respectively output not only ribbon feed amount indication information from an output line D3 but also hammer pressure information from an output line D4. Each of these two informations is constituted of binary code four bits and 16 states from 0 to 15 can be controlled.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to ribbon feeding control for a serial impact printer, and in particular, an object thereof is to variably control the feeding amount of a print ribbon in accordance with the types of characters to be printed.

Conventionally, in serial impact printers, the type is selected based on a printing character code such as an ASCII code or JIS code, and the type is printed by pressing the type provided on a rotating wheel or rotating cylinder onto paper via a ribbon. , the ribbon feed amount was always determined to be a constant length for each print, regardless of the type of type printed1.
For example, when using a ribbon such as a carbon film ribbon that cannot be used again once it has been printed, the ribbon should be adjusted to fit the widest type regardless of the paddle of the printed type. Shipping was taking place. therefore,
There are disadvantages in that the ribbon usage efficiency decreases and the frequency of ribbon replacement increases.

In addition, in such a printer, in order to make the printed characters uniform in density, it is necessary to change the strength of the impact hammer, that is, the hammer pressure, depending on the size of the printed characters. In order to control the hammer pressure in this way, hammer pressure information corresponding to the size of the type area is stored in a fixed storage device such as ROM, and the information is stored in a fixed storage device such as a ROM, and is stored along with the wheel position address code based on the inputted print character code. Printers that read and control the hammer pressure information are conventionally known.

What is the feed rate and hammer pressure for such a ribbon?

Since each type of typeface is different, if the input character code can be read out from the ROM along with the position address code necessary for selecting the typeface, it can be easily used as the control signal necessary for printing with that typeface. It can be used for.

Therefore, the serial impact printer of the present invention is characterized in that it is provided with means for storing ribbon feeding information.

In a serial impact printer that uses type on a rotating wheel or a rotating cylinder, there are two ways to select the type position: 1. For example, by inputting a print character code in ASCII code, the location of the type on the type wheel is selected from ROM. Read the target position address code indicating the type wheel, and count up or down the contents of the counter for each letter e on the type wheel, and use the output of the counter as the current position code of the type wheel.
A method is known in which the target position address code read from the OM is compared with the current position code of the wheel to select type. Since such a method of selecting the position of a printed font is not a direct object of the present invention, a detailed explanation of the known method will be omitted.

Next, the serial impact printer of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows three examples of characters with different typefaces, such as a capital letter "A" and a capital letter "■".

For the lowercase letter rbJ, set its type width to 2x, 2y, 2
It is represented by z.

When printing characters with different type widths and type areas, the ribbon feed amount is controlled using feed amount specification information corresponding to these type widths, such as X and y, and the hammer pressure is adjusted to correspond to these type area. Control using the hammer pressure information obtained improves the efficiency of ribbon usage and makes the density of printed characters uniform.

Generally speaking, type width and type area are roughly proportional, but depending on the type of type, they are not necessarily directly proportional. For example, the minus sign "-" has a relatively large type width, but a relatively small type area.

Therefore, for each type character, ribbon feed amount designation information corresponding to the type width and hammer pressure information corresponding to the type area are determined in advance and stored at the same address in the ROM.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing an embodiment of the serial impact printer of the present invention.

In the drawing, 1 and 2 are ROM, 3 is a rotating wheel control circuit, DI is an input line for a printed character code, D2 is an output line for a position address code, D3 is an output line for ribbon feed amount specification information, and D4 is hammer pressure information. shows the output line of

When a print character code such as an ASCI I code is input from the input line D1, a target position address code indicating the position of the type on the type wheel is output from the ROMI output line D2. is given to the one-rotation wheel control circuit 3, and compared with the contents of the current position counter provided therein, the type wheel is rotated until the two match, and the type character corresponding to the inputted print character code is selected. do.

At the same time, this target position address code is stored in the ROM2 in which ribbon feed amount designation information and hammer pressure information are stored.
9, specify the address of ROM2, and connect the output line D.
3 outputs ribbon feed amount designation information, and output line D4 outputs hammer pressure information.

Ribbon feed amount specification information and hammer pressure information are each 2
It consists of a 4-bit decimal code, and 16 states from 0 to 15 can be controlled.

It should be noted that the printed character position information is composed of 8 bits, as shown at D2 in FIG. 3, and is stored in a ROMI having a storage capacity of 8 bits.

In this way, if the control information for the ribbon feed amount and hammer pressure can be obtained in accordance with the input printing character code, printing will not occur as shown in the top and bottom rows of Figure 3. When a code is input, it is also possible to control so that neither the ribbon feed nor the hammer operation is performed.

Such ribbon feed amount designation information and hammer pressure information are not necessary throughout the printing cycle. For example, the ribbon feed control is such that before the printing operation by the hammer, the ribbon is fed by half the width of the type to be printed (the amount corresponding to X and y in Figure 1), and after the printing operation, it is further fed by half the width of the type. It is possible to do this in two parts. In addition, when performing this feeding operation in one time, add half of the width of the type printed immediately before and half of the width of the type printed in the first printing, and then feed it before the next printing operation. may be controlled.

Additionally, hammer pressure information is not needed during wheel rotation, but only after it has stopped.

Therefore, addressing of ROM2 does not necessarily require R.
It is not necessary to use the target position address code output from the OMI, and the address in the ROM 2 can also be specified using the contents held in the current position address counter necessary for wheel control.

In other words, in a control in which the ribbon is fed twice, half before printing and half after printing, the target position address code is used to read the ribbon feed amount specification information before printing.
The output from the current position address counter may be used to read the hammer pressure information necessary for printing and the ribbon feed amount designation information after printing.

In addition, when feeding the ribbon at one time, half of the width of the type printed just before and the ribbon feed amount specification information corresponding to the type printed just before are read out and stored in the current position address counter. The address of ROM2 during one printing cycle is specified by specifying the address of ROM2 according to the contents of the printout, and the target position address code is used to read the ribbon feed amount specification information corresponding to the next printed character. For designation, either one of the two can be used by appropriately switching as necessary.

The following FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram showing another embodiment of the serial impact type printer of the present invention. In the drawings, 3 indicates a rotating wheel control circuit as in the case of FIG. 2, 4 indicates a ribbon feed control circuit, 5 indicates a hammer pressure control circuit, and 6 indicates a ROM. DI-D4 is each input/output line similar to the case of FIG. 2, and D5 is an input line for a ROM switching command.

In the case of FIG. 4, ROM6 is composed of only one ROM1 and ROM2 used in FIG. Pressure information is read out.

That is, from the input line Dl, the printed character code is R.
When input to OM6, the ROM switching command is logic rO.
In this state, information for feeding the ribbon before printing is first read from the ROM 6. The read ribbon feed amount designation information is sent to the ribbon feed control circuit 4 through the output line D3, and is controlled.

The ROM switch command is then switched to a logic "1" state and the target location address code is read from the ROM 6. This address code is applied to the rotary wheel control circuit 3 from the output line D2 and is used to select the character position.

When the rotation of the wheel is completed, the ROM switching command is returned to the logic rOJ state, and the ROM6 output line D
3 gives the ribbon feed amount designation information after printing to the ribbon feed control circuit 4, and gives hammer pressure information for printing to the hammer pressure control circuit 5 from the output line D4.

As explained above, in the serial impact printer of the present invention, since the printer itself is provided with a storage means for storing hammer pressure information and ribbon feed information, variable feed control of the ribbon corresponding to type and hammer pressure variable control is possible.

Improved printing ribbon usage efficiency and uniform density of printed characters are achieved.

Furthermore, since the sum of the amount of hammer pressure information and ribbon feed information is smaller than the storage capacity of the type position information storage means, it is possible to store them in the same storage means, and they can be stored in separate memories. Compared to the case where the information is stored in a memory device, memory capacity can be used more efficiently, and reading from the memory can be easily controlled, and many other excellent effects can be obtained.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows three examples of characters with different typefaces, FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing an embodiment of the serial impact printer of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is an example of a ROM code table.
FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram showing another embodiment of the serial impact printer of the present invention. In the drawings, 1 and 2 are ROMs, 3 is a rotating wheel control circuit, 4 is a ribbon feed control circuit, 5 is a hammer pressure control circuit, and 6 is a ROM. Drawing I;・Iku° (no change in content) )jI? 1. Orality 2. Illustrations 3. Illustration fragments 4. Illustration procedure amendment export) December 26, 1985

Claims (1)

[Claims] A serial impact printer having a type body having type characters for printing, an impact hammer for impacting the type characters, and a ribbon for printing,
A serial impact printer characterized by comprising a ribbon feeding information storage means for storing ribbon feeding information for ribbon feeding.