KR20040021024A - Fast network printer and printing method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A high-speed network printer and a printing method thereof are provided to transmit the printing data to a printer from a network card through a shared memory in parallel not sequential. CONSTITUTION: The network card(40) receives the printing data through the network and outputs the received printing data. The shared memories(42-46) buffer/output the printing data inputted from the network card. The printer(48) prints the printing data output from the shared memories. The network card is equipped with a data receiver receiving the printing data from a host through the network, a memory checker checking the shared memory buffering no printing data and outputting a checking result, and a data output part recognizing the shared memory buffering no printing data and outputting the printing data inputted from the data receiver to the recognized shared memory.

Description

High speed network printer and its printing method

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a network printer, and more particularly, to a high speed network printer capable of printing at high speed and a printing method thereof.

In general, a network printer has a network card (not shown), a shared memory (not shown), and a printing unit (not shown). At this time, transfer of printing data using a shared memory is performed one by one between the network card and the printing unit. That is, when two print data are to be transferred from the network card to the printing unit through one shared memory, other printing data is transferred from the network card only after one printing data is transferred from the network card to the printing unit through the shared memory. It may be transmitted to the printing unit through.

For example, if you want to print A, B, and C, which are printing data from three hosts (not shown), in the printing unit in the order of A, B, and C, a small amount of A is not a problem. If the capacity of is large, B and C cannot wait to be buffered in shared memory until printing data A has been transferred from the network card to the printing unit. As described above, the conventional network printer sequentially prints the print data, and thus has a problem in that the print data cannot be printed quickly by delaying the print time.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in an effort to provide a high-speed network printer capable of transmitting data for printing from a network card to a printing unit in parallel, not sequentially, through a shared memory.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a printing method performed in the high speed network printer.

1 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between a high speed network printer and a host according to the present invention.

2 is a block diagram of a network printer according to the present invention shown in FIG.

3 is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of the present invention of the network card shown in FIG.

4 is a flowchart for explaining a printing method of a high speed network printer according to the present invention.

In order to achieve the above object, a high-speed network printer according to the present invention for receiving and printing at least one print data transmitted from each of the at least one host via a network, receiving the at least one print data via the network, The network card outputting the received at least one print data, at least two shared memories for buffering and outputting the received at least one print data input from the network card, and the print memory output from the shared memories. It is preferable that it is comprised by the printing part which prints data.

In order to achieve the above object, a network card for receiving at least one printing data transmitted from each of the at least one host through a network, at least two shared memories buffering the printing data input from the network card, and the sharing The printing method according to the present invention performed in a high speed network printer having a printing unit for printing the printing data output from the memory, the printing data received from the at least one host of the at least one of the shared memory; Sending print data to the unbuffered shared memory, buffering the at least one received print data to the print portion, printing the buffered print data, and receiving the received print data. If it is judged whether among the other, from the network card, the printing data exists, send part the printing, and determines that from the network card, the printing data sent as part the printed exists is made of a step of proceeding to the step (a) is preferred.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings, the configuration and operation of a high-speed network printer according to the present invention will be described as follows.

1 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between a high-speed network printer and a host according to an embodiment of the present invention, wherein the first, second, ..., and Mth hosts 10, 12, ..., and 14 are shown. And a network printer 20. Here, M is a positive integer of 1 or more.

The network printer 20 shown in FIG. 1 receives at least one printing data transmitted from each of the at least one host 10, 12,..., 14 via the wired or wireless network 16, and receives the received data. Print data for printing. Here, the hosts 10, 12, ... or 14 mean a personal computer (PC) host.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the network printer 20 according to the present invention shown in FIG. 1, showing a network card 40, first, second, ... and N-th shared memories 42, 44,... And 46) and a printing unit 48. Here, N is a positive integer of 2 or more.

The network card 40 shown in FIG. 2 may have a communication protocol for printing, for example, TCP / IP, DCL / LLC, etc., and inputs at least one printing data to the input terminal IN1 via the network 16. Receive from the first, second, ... and Mth hosts 10, 12, ..., and 14, and share the received at least one printable data with corresponding shared memory 42, 44, ... Or 46).

3 is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of the network card 40 shown in FIG. 2, which includes a data receiving unit 60, a memory check unit 62, and a data output unit 64. As shown in FIG.

The data receiving unit 60 of the network card shown in FIG. 3 receives at least one print data transmitted from at least one host 10, 12, ... and 14 via the network 16 through the input terminal IN2. Then, the received at least one print data is output to the data output unit 64. At this time, the memory inspecting unit 62 checks whether there is a shared memory which does not buffer printing data, and outputs the inspected result to the data output unit 64. At this time, the data output unit 64 recognizes the shared memory which does not buffer the printing data from the checked result input from the memory inspecting unit 62, and receives the received printing use input from the data receiving unit 60 into the recognized shared memory. Output data through output terminal OUT2.

For example, the network card 40 outputs the received print data to the shared memory whose flag is off. At this time, if there is no shared memory with the flag off, the network card 40 first outputs data for printing to the shared memory with the flag off. Here, a flag is allocated to each shared memory, and the network card 40 turns on the flag assigned to the shared memory from off when it wants to buffer the printing data to any shared memory, and all the printing data is stored in the shared memory. When transmitted, it sends an end-of-job signal (EOJ: End Of Job) to the printing unit 48 and turns off the flag corresponding to the shared memory. Thus, in order for the network card 40 to occupy the nth (1≤n≤N) shared memory 42, 44, ... or 46 to buffer the data for printing, the nth shared memory 42, 44, ... Or 46) must be off.

On the other hand, the first, second, ... and N-th shared memories 42, 44, ..., and 46 are storage spaces for transmitting and receiving various data between the network card 40 and the printing unit 48. At least one print data received from the network card 40 is buffered and output to the printing unit 48. At this time, the printing unit 48 prints the printing data output from the first, second, ... and N-th shared memories 42, 44, ..., and 46, and outputs the printed result to the output terminal. Output via OUT1.

Data transmission and reception between the above-described network card 40 and the printing unit 48 may be defined by, for example, a printer communication module (PCM).

Hereinafter, a printing method of a high speed network printer according to the present invention performed by the above-described high speed network printer will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a printing method of a high-speed network printer according to the present invention, which comprises the steps of receiving print data and sending it to a corresponding shared memory (steps 80 to 84), buffering and printing print data. And (step 90), judging whether there exists printing data to be transmitted from the network card to the printing unit via the shared memory (step 90).

In order to perform the printing method of the high speed network printer according to the present invention, first, the network card 40 stores the at least one data for printing received from the at least one host 10, 12,. 2, ... and N-th shared memories 42, 44, ..., and 46 are sent (printing steps 80 to 84) to the non-buffered shared memory.

For example, as described above, the data receiving unit 60 of the network card 40 receives at least one printing data from the at least one host 10, 12,..., And 14 via the network 16. 80 steps). After the eighty-eighth step, the memory checker 62 determines whether there is a shared memory that does not buffer the received at least one print data (step 82). If it is determined that there is no shared memory not buffering the print data, it is continuously determined whether there is a shared memory not buffering the print data. This is because even if there is no shared memory which does not buffer the print data at present, the shared memory which has transferred the buffered print data to the print unit 48 can buffer the print data again.

However, if it is determined that there is a shared memory not buffering the print data, the print data is sent to the shared memory not buffering the print data (step 84).

For example, to perform step 82, the memory check unit 62 may set N flags corresponding to the first, second,..., And N-th shared memories 42, 44,..., And 46. It may be determined whether there is an off flag. That is, the presence of an off flag corresponds to the presence of shared memory that does not buffer print data. Therefore, if it is determined that the flag is turned off, the received print data is sent to the shared memory corresponding to the flag turned off (step 84).

After step 84, the corresponding shared memory of the first, second, ..., and N-th shared memories 42, 44, ..., and 46 buffers the received print data, and stores the buffered print data. It sends to the printing part 48 (step 86).

After step 86, the printing unit 48 prints the print data sent buffered in the shared memory (step 88). After step 88, it is determined whether there is print data to be sent from the network card to the printing unit 48 (step 90). Here, step 90 may be performed by the network card 40. If it is determined that there is printing data to be sent from the network card 40 to the printing unit 48, the flow proceeds to step 82.

For better understanding of the present invention, a flag indicating a buffering state of M = 3, N = 2 and the first shared memory 42 is called a first flag, and a flag indicating a buffering state of the second shared memory 44 is referred to. Called the second flag, suppose the printing data output from the first, second and third hosts 10, 12 and 14 are A, B and C, respectively. At this time, the sizes of A, B, and C are 4M, 20K, and 5K bytes, respectively, and are connected to the network printer 20 in the order of the first, second, and third hosts 10, 12, and 14, respectively. That is, assume that printing data has been received to the network card 40 in the order of A, B and C. FIG.

Under the foregoing assumption, the high speed network printer and the printing method of the printer according to the present invention firstly use the first and second flags when A and B received before the C in the network card 40 are all turned off. And second shared memories 42 and 44, respectively. However, when only one of the first and second flags is off, A is first buffered in the shared memories 42 and 44 corresponding to the off in flag. However, when both the first and second flags are on, A is buffered in the shared memory corresponding to the flag that is turned off first. For example, assume that the first and second flags are both off, so that A and B are buffered in the first and second shared memories 42 and 44, respectively. At this time, the printing data is transferred to the first and second shared memories 42 and 44 or the printing data is transferred from the first and second shared memories 42 and 44 to the printing unit 48. And the second flags are on. Thus, while the first and second flags are on, the printing data C cannot be buffered in the first or second shared memory 42 or 44. That is, the transmission of the printing data C to the printing unit 48 through the shared memory is waited until the first or second flag is turned off. At this time, when the printing data B having a small capacity is transmitted to the printing unit 48 before A, the network card 40 transmits the EOJ to the printing unit 48 and turns off the second flag. At this time, the printing data C is buffered into the second shared memory 44 having the second flag turned off. Therefore, printing data B and C can be transmitted to the printing unit 48 through the second shared memory 44 while the printing data A is buffered in the first shared memory 42 and transmitted to the printing unit 48. have.

Under the foregoing assumption, the conventional network printer cannot print B until printing of A is completed and prints A and B until printing data is transferred from the hosts in the order A → B → C. Cannot be printed, only A → B → C. In contrast, the high speed network printer and the printing method of the printer according to the present invention can print B and C before A when the capacity of A is large. That is, printing is performed in the order of B → C → A. That is, in order to print A, B, and C, while the time for printing A (TA), the time for printing B (TB), and the time for printing C (TC) are all conventionally required, By the high speed network printer and its printing method, B and C can be printed during TA.

As a result, the high speed network printer and the printing method thereof according to the present invention mainly buffer the printing data transmitted from the network card 40 to the printing unit 48 in the first shared memory 42, and the first shared memory 42 is used. May buffer the printing data in the second shared memory 44 and transfer it to the printing unit 48 from the network card 40 when the other printing data is buffered.

As described above, the high-speed network printer and the printing method thereof according to the present invention can transmit several printing data in parallel from the network card to the printing unit through the shared memories, so that the printing data can be printed more quickly. Has

Claims (6)

A high speed network printer for receiving and printing at least one print data transmitted from each of the at least one host through a network, A network card for receiving the at least one printing data through the network and outputting the received at least one printing data; At least two shared memories for buffering and outputting the received at least one print data input from the network card; And And a printing unit for printing the printing data output from the shared memories. The network card of claim 1, wherein the network card is A data receiving unit receiving the at least one printing data from the at least one host through the network; A memory checker which checks whether the shared memory which does not buffer the print data exists and outputs the checked result; And A data output unit for recognizing the shared memory which does not buffer the print data from the checked result, and outputting the received print data input from the data receiving unit to the recognized shared memory; printer. A network card that receives at least one print data transmitted from each of at least one host via a network, at least two shared memories buffering the print data input from the network card, and the print memory output from the shared memories A printing method performed in a high speed network printer having a printing unit for printing data, the method comprising: (a) sending the at least one print data received from the at least one host to a shared memory that does not buffer the print data of the shared memories; (b) buffering and sending the at least one received printing data to the printing unit; (c) printing the buffered printing data; And (d) It is determined whether there is printing data to be sent from the network card to the printing unit among the received printing data, and if it is determined that the printing data to be sent from the network card to the printing unit exists, the process proceeds to step (a). A printing method for a high speed network printer, comprising the steps of: The method of claim 3, wherein step (a) (a1) receiving the at least one printing data from the at least one host via the network; (a2) determining whether there is the shared memory that does not buffer the received at least one print data; And (a3) if it is determined that the shared memory that does not buffer the print data exists, sending the received print data to the shared memory that does not buffer the print data. Way. The printing method of a high speed network printer according to claim 4, wherein the step (d) proceeds to the step (a2) when it is determined that the printing data to be sent from the network card to the printing unit is present. The method of claim 4, wherein the step (a2) determines whether an off flag exists, and if it is determined that the off flag exists, the process proceeds to the step (a3), and the step (a3) the off flag Sends the received print data to a shared memory corresponding to And the flag is turned on when the shared memory buffers the print data and turned off when not buffering the print data.