JPS5856192A - printing device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a printing device, and particularly to a printing device, in which frequently used standard printing pattern information is incorporated, and other printing pattern information is retrieved from a control device. The present invention relates to a dot matrix type printing device that enables accurate printing by performing the process of extracting print pattern information during the printing operation of the previous print line.

In a dot matrix type printing device, characters to be printed are expressed and output by turning on/off dots of, for example, 16×16, 24×24°, 32×32, etc. For example, in the case of 24x24 dots, 576 bits or 72 bytes of information are required for each character.For example, for characters with many types of characters, such as Japanese including Kanji, the entire printing pattern information is required. The amount will be extremely large.

Conventionally, printing devices have two methods: one in which all the above-mentioned printing pattern information necessary for printing is built into the printing device, and the other is in which the printing pattern information is stored in a shared pattern information file of the printing device's control device, and the necessary printing pattern information is extracted from this file. A method of taking out and printing the paper was used. According to the former method, all printing pattern information is stored for each printing device, resulting in considerable waste, and especially when there are many types of characters, there is a drawback that the price increases significantly. According to the latter method, there is no waste when a plurality of printing devices 4 are connected to the control device, and it is also possible to use external storage devices such as floppy disks, so the former method is better. There are no such drawbacks. However, in the conventional latter method, the following steps are required: extracting a code that has been instructed to be printed, extracting printing pattern information corresponding to the code to be printed from the control device, storing the printing pattern information in a line buffer, and storing the printing pattern information from the line buffer. Because each process, such as printout, was performed serially, the amount of pattern information that could be extracted from the control device was limited due to the actual printout speed and buffer capacity. There is another pattern (
For example, there was a drawback that it had to be replaced with a blank (for example, a blank space) and printed.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems, and to make it possible to accurately print out all the nine print codes of a print instruction without increasing the price of the hardware of a printing device. Therefore, the printing device of the present invention is a dot matrix printing device connected to a control device containing print pattern information, and includes a character generator that converts one print code into print pattern information;
a non-resident code processing unit that detects a non-resident code that cannot be converted by the character generator and extracts print pattern information corresponding to the non-resident code from the control device in units of one character or a plurality of characters;

It is equipped with at least two or more line buffers in which print pattern information for each print line is stored, and while performing a printing operation based on the print pattern information stored in one of the line buffers, the non-resident code processing section prints the next print. It is characterized by the ability to process non-resident code for rows. This will be explained below with reference to the drawings.

Fig. 1 is an example of the configuration of a display subsystem according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a built-in pattern range using a kanji code as an example, Fig. 3 is a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, and Fig. 4 is a non-resident code. This is an explanatory diagram of memory correspondence for . In the figure, 1 is a control device that controls display devices and printing devices connected to the lower level, 2 is a shared pattern information file in which print pattern information is stored, 3 is an ORT display device, and 4°4' is a dot matrix type. a printing device; 5 a print code buffer in which a print code with a print instruction is stored;
Reference numeral 6 denotes a non-resident code processing unit that processes a non-resident code corresponding to printing pattern information that is not built into the printing device; 7 determines whether or not the print code taken out from the print code buffer 5 is a non-resident code, and processes the non-resident code. 8 is a non-resident code detecting section, 8 is an emergency code memory, 9 is a non-resident pattern memory, IO is a control circuit that performs synchronization control and other overall control within the printing device 4, 11 is a character generator based on built-in printing pattern information, 12
is the first line buffer, 13 is the second line buffer, 1
Reference numeral 4 represents a printing mechanism section that performs actual printout.

As shown in FIG. 1, a printing device 4 according to the present invention is connected to a control device 1. As shown in FIG. Other display devices [3, printing device 14', etc.] may be connected to the control device 1. The control device 1 has a shared pattern information file 2 in an external storage device such as a floppy disk. This shared pattern information file 2 stores pattern information for all printing and display purposes for creating dot character patterns required by lower-level connected devices, and is used by lower-level connected devices such as the printing device 4. In response to a request from the user, the print pattern information corresponding to the print code is extracted from the shared pattern information file 2 and transferred.

On the other hand, the printing device 4 is also configured to have built-in printing pattern information corresponding to some very frequently used printing codes. For example, a Kanji code is represented in 2 bytes because there are so many types of Kanji characters, but if printing pattern information for 7,000 characters is assigned to a Kanji code, the printing pattern information for those 7,000 characters is The control device 1 has the printing pattern information as shown in area A in FIG. 2, and the printing device 4 also holds the printing pattern information corresponding to the kanji code in area B shown in FIG.

In FIG. 3, the print code buffer 5 is a buffer in which a print code instructed to be printed is stored from the host processing device via the control device 1, and has a size of, for example, 4 bytes. The non-resident code detection circuit 7 of the non-resident code processing section 6 is a circuit that checks whether the printing pattern information corresponding to each print code for which printing is instructed is built in the printing device 4. Codes corresponding to one line are sequentially output, and non-resident codes, that is, print codes for which the printing device 4 does not hold corresponding print pattern information, are detected and extracted. The detected non-resident codes are sequentially stored in the non-resident code memory 8 from the beginning. This process is performed, for example, on a printing line basis, but the frequently used printing pattern information as described above is built into the printing device #4, and the printing pattern information is generated by the built-in character generator 11 as described later. Therefore, the proportion of non-resident codes included in one print line is generally small.

When the non-resident code detection process for one print line is completed, the non-resident code stored in the non-resident code memory 8 is transferred to the control device 1, and the corresponding print pattern is detected from the shared pattern information file 2 of the control wave [11]. The information is retrieved and the result is stored in the non-resident pattern memory 9. The process of extracting the print pattern information from the control device 1 may be performed using the same procedure as in the past. For example, for kanji code, 2 characters per character.
For example, 9 bytes are required in the non-resident code memory 8.
An area with a size of 0x2 bytes is prepared, but for the non-resident pattern memory 9, for example, if a character is represented by 24x24 dots, 72 bytes are required for each character, so an area of 90x72 bytes is prepared. An area is prepared. As shown in FIG. 4, these areas are sequentially associated with each character from the beginning, and the print pattern information transferred from the control device 1 is also stored in the non-resident area corresponding to the storage position of the print code in the non-resident code memory 8. It will be stored in the storage position of the pattern memory 9.

All print pattern information corresponding to the print code stored in the non-resident code memory 9 is stored in the non-resident pattern memory 9.
Once the print code has been retrieved and stored, under the control of the control circuit 10, the print code of the same print line as the print line just processed is read out again from the print code buffer 5 and input to the non-resident code detection circuit 7. It will be done like this. The non-resident code detection circuit 7 determines the non-resident code for each print code of the input print line in the same way as in the first case, but from now on, the following processing is performed depending on whether the result is a non-resident code or not. do. If the judgment result is not a non-resident code, the printed code is printed by the built-in character generator 1.
1 input. The built-in character generator 11 is
Print pattern information corresponding to the input print code is generated, and the resulting print pattern information is stored in the first line sofa 12. If the judgment result in the non-resident code detection circuit 7 is a non-resident code, the print pattern information corresponding to it is already stored in the non-resident pattern memory 9, so read out the print pattern information,
The data is stored in the first line buffer 12. In this way 1
The printing pattern for the printed lines + [is the first line buffer 12
When all of the contents are stored in the first line buffer 12, the printing mechanism section 14 starts a printing operation, and the contents of the first line buffer 12 are printed out.

On the other hand, while the printing mechanism section 14 is printing out the contents of the first line buffer 12, the non-resident code processing section 6
The print code for the next print line is input from the print code buffer 5 to the non-resident code detection circuit 7, and the non-resident code is processed in the same manner as in the above case. Then, the print pattern information of the next line obtained from the inner character generator 11 or the non-resident pattern memory 9 is stored in the next second line (sofa 13). After the printout of the contents is completed, the print pattern information stored in the second amplifier 13 is similarly retrieved and printed out.

While the contents of the second line buffer 13 are being printed out, the printing pattern information for successive lines to be stored in the first line buffer 12 is processed as described above.

That is, the preparation process for print pattern information by the non-resident code processing section 6 and the like and the printing operation by the printing mechanism section 14 are executed in parallel. Thereafter, the printing operation is repeated in the same manner, and if all the contents of the print code buffer 5 have been printed, the printing operation is terminated.

As explained above, according to the present invention, it is not necessary to hold all print pattern information for each printing device, and moreover, it is possible to reduce the burden on the control device and to print all print patterns accurately. Become.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is an example of the configuration of a display subsystem according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a built-in pattern range, Fig. 3 is an explanatory diagram of an embodiment of the configuration of the present invention, and Fig. 4 is an explanatory diagram of memory correspondence for non-resident codes. show. In the figure, 1 is a control device, 2 is a shared pattern information file,
3 is a display device, and 4 is a printing device. 5 is a print code buffer, 6 is a non-resident code processing section, and 7 is a print code buffer.
is a non-resident code detection circuit, 8 is a non-resident code memory, and 9 is a non-resident code detection circuit.
is a non-resident pattern memory, 10 is a control circuit, 11 is a built-in character generator, 12 is a first line buffer,
13 represents a second line buffer, and 14 represents a printing mechanism section. Patent applicant Hiroshi Mori, agent patent attorney of Fujitsu Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a dot matrix printing device connected to a control device containing print pattern information, there is a character generator that converts one print code into print pattern information, and a character generator that detects a non-resident code that cannot be converted by the character generator and converts it into the non-resident code. a non-resident code processing unit that retrieves the print turn information to be matched from the control device in units of one or more characters; and at least two or more line buffers in which print turn information is stored in print line units; While performing the printing operation based on the printing pattern information stored in the VC of the above line/(one of the sofas),
1. A printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the non-resident code processing section performs non-resident code processing for the next print line.