JPS6216156A - Apparatus for controlling printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable printing at every recordable region and to make it possible to perform high speed printing, by storing character data corresponding to the number of printable lines in a buffer memory and outputting the character data of each line to a serial head all together to perform printing. CONSTITUTION:When the order of (LF+CR) from a host computer 10 is received in a process for writing data in an image buffer memory 7, the received data is written in the address after the address of a second line. When only LF order is received when the value of the address counter 8 of the second line is (C1+n), the written data corresponding to the previous three lines remain between addresses C3-(C3+n) and, thereafter, regions of C3-C3+n are cleared by a DMA controller 6. Subsequently, an image is formed from the address of (C3+n+1) on the basis of the character data succeeding to the LF order and, from the address corresponding to each line of the image buffer memory 7, 15 bits of data corresponding to successive three lines in a vertical direction are simultaneously transferred to a printing control part 9 and the printing of three lines are simultaneously performed in a printing width and high speed printing can be performed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printer control device that is capable of printing a plurality of lines at once.

[Background technology]

Conventionally, serial printers print one line at a time, and when one line of printing is completed, a CR (carriage return) command is issued to return the head to the home position, and at the same time, the LF (line feed) The configuration is such that a command is issued to feed recording paper the width of one line, and then print the next line.

If you are trying to speed up such a line-by-line printer, for example, in the case of a thermal transfer type, you will have to increase the heating speed and head feed speed, but these measures alone will not increase the speed. There are limits to

Therefore, a method has been proposed to increase printing speed by printing multiple lines at once. For example, three lines are printed at the same time to increase the printing speed by about three times.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, when trying to print multiple lines one by one, as shown in Figure 7, issue the LF command each time a line is finished printing, and then print the next line without issuing the CR command. If you try to do this, the recording paper will be transported one line each time an LP command is issued, so even though it has the ability to print multiple lines, it is actually processed one line at a time, making it difficult to take advantage of high speed. There were no inconveniences.

[Means and effects for solving the problem] The present invention has been made in view of the above, and is intended to prevent recording paper from being conveyed in the year when the LF command is issued within the recordable area. The present invention provides a printer control device that ignores an LP command issued to a recordable area and prints in that area all at once.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, a printer control device according to the present invention will be explained in detail.

FIG. 1 shows a printer control device according to the present invention, which includes an interface 1 that exchanges predetermined information (sending of BUSY signals, etc.) with a host computer 10, and receives data from a host computer 10, and a control device. The CPU 2 analyzes the received data according to a program stored in the font memory 3, reads the corresponding image data from the font memory 4 when the data is print data, and writes it to the image buffer memory 7, and a ROM or RAM. A control memory 3 stores programs for operating the CPU 2, a font memory 4 stores data such as various characters, symbols, numbers, etc. When an LF command is issued, data is transferred by DMA transfer. I10 port 5 where the address for transfer to image bar sofa memory 7 is set, DMA controller 6 which controls DMA transfer, and data for multiple lines (for example, 3 lines) read from font memory 4. an image buffer memory 7 to which the data is written, and an address counter 8 which sets the address of the image buffer memory 7 to which data from the font memory 4 is transferred and increments a count value every time one byte is written.
It is composed of a print control section 9 that reads image data in a predetermined order, transfers it to the thermal head 20, and applies a print pulse to perform recording.

One font stored in the font memory 4 has, for example, 40 dots x 40 dots processed in 5 bytes, as shown in FIG. That is, one character is θ~19
9 addresses, and as shown in FIG. 3, one line is continuously image barred.

The data is stored in the file memory 7. Image buffer memory 7
has a capacity sufficient to cover the length of the recording paper in the main scanning direction.

In the above configuration, an example will be described in which the recordable area (the number of lines recorded by the head 20) has a performance of 6 lines/inch and a width of 2 inches, and simultaneous printing of 3 lines is possible. Here, the address counter 8 contains the starting addresses CI, Cz, C3 of each line shown in FIG.
The initial value is fixed for each. As the first line data from the host computer 10, for example, A, B,
If an alphabet such as C........ is sent, the CPU reads image data corresponding to the data imported from the interface 1 from the font memory 4 and sequentially stores it in the address counter 8 of the image buffer memory 7. Write to the address specified by. At this time, the count value is incremented by +1 each time one byte is written. If the command (LF+CR) is received from the host computer 10 in the process of writing data to the image buffer memory 7 in this way, the data received thereafter will be written to the address of the second line of the image buffer memory 7 (starting address C2). I'll write it down later. Thereafter, when the second (LF+CR) command is issued in the same way, data to be received thereafter is written starting from the first address C3.

Here, it is assumed that only the LF command is received during the data writing process, for example, when the value of the address counter 8 in the second row is (ct+n). In this case, the writing process for the third row will be performed from the address (C3+n+1) (as is clear from FIG. 7, one row in the horizontal direction is completed consecutively by only changing rows). However, C1～(
C, I+n) address is not written this time, but the data from the previous three lines of writing remains and needs to be cleared.

Therefore, the CPU 2 follows the program in the memory 3.
The content of the address counter 8 is read to calculate the address range to be cleared, and the start address and number of transferred bytes are sent to the DMA controller 6. Also, set 0 for I10 boat 5 (this set is C3 to C, +
This is used to specify whether to fill the area up to n with white or black, where 0=white and 1=black). Among these, the CPU enables the DMA and uses the DMA controller 6 to transfer data from C3 to C3 of the image buffer memory 7.
Clear the area C, +n. Next, an image is created from the address (C++n+l) from the character data following the LF command, and when the (CR+LF) command is received, the image is created sequentially from the address corresponding to each line of the image buffer memory 7 as shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, 15 bytes and bytes of vertical data for 3 lines are simultaneously printed by the print control unit 9.
As shown in FIG. 5, three lines are simultaneously printed within the printing width β, as shown in FIG. 6, and high-speed printing is possible.

In the above embodiment, an example was shown in which each of the I10 port 5, DMA controller 6, and address counter 8 was configured by hardware, but it is also possible to implement some or all of these by software. Also, although a thermal head was used as an example of the head,
Of course, the present invention can also be applied to other types of print heads that print serially.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As is clear from the above, according to the printer control device of the present invention, character data for the number of lines that can be printed is stored in the buffer memory, and then the character data for each line is serially output to the head for printing. As a result, printing can be performed for each recordable area, and high-speed printing can be performed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a font configuration, FIG. 3 is a schematic configuration diagram of an image buffer memory according to the present invention, and FIG. 4 is an image buffer memory. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of reading print data from the image buffer memory; FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of an example of printing; and FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of batch printing of multiple lines. Explanation of symbols 1 -...-Interface, 2--CPU, 3--Control memory, 4
---Font memory, 5---I10 port, 6 ------ DMA controller,
7−・−・−・Image buffer memory, 8 −−−−
-1.Address counter, 9-..print control unit, 10.1.Host computer. Patent applicant Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. Agent Patent attorney Shin Matsubara 2 Seiji Muraki Tadao Hirata Jun Ueshima - Figure 1 Figure 2, Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) In a serial printer that reads a font corresponding to the input character code from the font memory and prints it, there is a print head that has multiple print dots that correspond to multiple lines of print characters, and a print head that has multiple print dots that correspond to the multiple lines of print characters. a buffer memory having a storage area for storing fonts for each line; and when storing the font for each line in the storage area, the font for each line is handled according to the line order based on a predetermined next line transition signal; 1. A printer control device, comprising: a control unit that stores the font in a storage area and simultaneously controls printing operations for the plurality of print dots after the font storage operation for the plurality of lines is completed. (2) The printer control according to claim 1, wherein the control unit performs control operations based on a CR signal that returns the carriage to the home position and an LF signal that advances the recording paper by one line as the next line transition signal. Device. (3) The printer control device according to claim 1, wherein the control section performs a control operation to clear the stored contents between the start address of the next line and the write start address when receiving only the LF signal.