JPH0338112B2 - - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention [Technical Field] The present invention provides document information for a plurality of pages in an output format in units of one page or in a predetermined font size smaller than the output format in units of one page. The present invention relates to an information output device capable of generating instruction information for outputting in units of multiple pages.

[Prior Art] For example, when attempting to output a plurality of pages consisting of character strings side by side in the horizontal direction, there is a method of first outputting all the character strings on the left, and then outputting all the character strings on the right page. Conceivable. However, if the characters are to be output side-by-side in the horizontal direction, it is desirable to output character strings that correspond in position continuously through the left and right pages. It is also necessary to output page by page, and in either case, it is desirable to perform output with appropriate control for each page.

[Purpose] In view of the above points, an object of the present invention is to output document information for multiple pages in a page-by-page format, or in a predetermined font size smaller than that in a page-by-page format. An object of the present invention is to provide an information output device capable of generating instruction information for outputting in units of multiple pages.

In view of the above points, an object of the present invention is to read the first document information constituting one page and repeat scanning in the row direction multiple times in a direction perpendicular to the row direction when outputting page by page. After outputting the first document information in the first font size by doing this, the second document information constituting another page is read out, and scanning in the line direction is repeated multiple times in a direction perpendicular to the line direction. The reading and output are controlled so that the second document information is output in the first font size by scanning and outputting the second document information in units of a predetermined plurality of pages.
and second document information constituting the plurality of pages to be output in the same output scanning direction, and outputting the same output scanning direction to the first page and the second page. The first document information and the second document information are output by repeating outputting the first document information and the second document information by the same output scanning by the output means a plurality of times in a direction perpendicular to the output scanning direction. An object of the present invention is to provide an information output device capable of controlling readout and output so as to output in a second font size smaller than the font size of .

〔Example〕

[Overview of Recording Apparatus] The present invention will be described in detail below using a recording apparatus that records information by scanning a recording medium with a laser beam as an embodiment. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overview of the recording apparatus. Specifically, it consists of a device such as a magnetic tape, and includes an information providing unit 10 for deriving information to be recorded.
0. It consists of a control unit 110 that controls the information to be recorded obtained from the information supply unit 100 so as to be suitable for recording, and a recording unit 300 that records the information sent from the control unit 110 onto a recording medium. However, in this embodiment, the recording unit 300 scans a photoreceptor with a laser beam modulated according to recording information to form a latent image on the photoreceptor, and deposits toner on the latent image. This uses a recording device that transfers toner onto recording paper, and this recording device will first be described in detail.

[Perspective view of recording device] FIGS. 2 and 3 are perspective views showing an overview of the recording device and perspective views showing an overview of the actual device. In these figures, the laser oscillator 301
The laser beam oscillated by the reflection mirror 3
02 to the input aperture of the modulator 303. The reflecting mirror 302 is inserted to bend the optical path in order to reduce the space of the apparatus, and can be removed if unnecessary.

For the modulator 303, an acousto-optic modulation element using a known acousto-optic effect or an electro-optic element using an electro-optic effect is used.

In the modulator 303, the laser beam is modulated in intensity according to the input signal to the modulator 303.

In addition, when the laser oscillator 301 is a semiconductor laser, a gas laser, etc., which is capable of current modulation, or an internal modulation type laser in which a modulation element is incorporated in the oscillation optical path, , the modulator 303 is omitted and the beam is guided directly to the beam expander 304.

The beam diameter of the laser beam from the modulator 303 is expanded by a beam expander while it remains a parallel beam. Furthermore, the laser beam whose beam diameter has been expanded is incident on a polyhedral rotating mirror 305 having one or more mirror surfaces. The polyhedral rotating mirror 305 is mounted on a shaft supported by high-precision bearings (e.g., air bearings) and is driven by a motor 306 that rotates at a constant speed (e.g., hysteresis synchronous motor, DC servo motor).
5, the laser beam 31 is swept horizontally by
2 is imaged as a spot on a photosensitive drum 308 by an imaging lens 307 having f-θ characteristics. In a general imaging lens, when the incident angle of the light ray is θ, the image forming position r on the image plane is f=
There is a relationship f・tanθ...(1) (f: focal length of the imaging lens), and as in this embodiment, the laser beam 3 reflected by a fixed polyhedral rotating mirror 305
12, the angle of incidence on the imaging lens 307 changes linearly with time. Therefore, the moving speed of the imaged spot position on the photosensitive drum 308, which is the image surface, changes non-linearly and is not constant. That is, the moving speed increases at the point where the angle of incidence increases. Therefore, the laser beam is emitted at regular intervals.
When turned ON and a spot row is placed on the photosensitive drum 308, the interval between them becomes wider at both ends than at the center.

Beam detector 318 consists of a small entrance slit and a fast response time photoelectric conversion element (eg, a PIN diode). The beam detector 318 detects the position of the swept laser beam 312, and uses this detection signal to determine the start timing of the input signal to the modulator 303 for providing desired optical information on the photosensitive drum. do.

As described above, the deflected and modulated laser beam 312 is irradiated onto the photosensitive drum 308, visualized by an electrophotographic process, transferred and fixed onto plain paper, and output as a hard copy.

[Side View of Recording Unit] Next, the printing section 319 will be explained with reference to FIG. 4.

As an example (first example) of an electrophotographic process applied to this example, as described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 42-23910 of the present applicant, a conductive support, a photoconductive layer, and an insulating layer are basically used. Photosensitive drum 30 as a component
8, the surface of the insulating layer is uniformly charged positively or negatively by the first corona charger 309, and a layer with a polarity opposite to that of the charged polarity is applied to the interface between the photoconductive layer and the insulating layer or inside the photoconductive layer. The charges are captured, and then the laser beam 3 is applied to the surface of the charged insulating layer.
At the same time, the AC corona discharger 31
0, a pattern is formed on the surface of the insulating layer by the difference in surface potential that occurs according to the light and dark pattern of the laser beam 312, and the entire surface of the insulating layer is uniformly exposed to contrast. After forming a high electrostatic image on the surface of the insulating layer and visualizing the electrostatic image by developing it with a developer mainly composed of charged colored particles using a developing device 313, a transfer material 311 such as paper is formed. The visible image is transferred to using an internal or external electric field, and then the transferred image is fixed by a fixing means 315 such as an infrared lamp or a hot plate to obtain an electrophotographic print image,
On the other hand, after the transfer is performed, the surface of the insulating layer is cleaned by a cleaning device 316 to remove remaining charged particles, and the photosensitive drum 308 is used repeatedly.

Note that 314 is a transfer corona discharger, 317 is a post-corona discharger, and the same numbers in each figure indicate the same members.

Next, in the embodiments described so far, the surface of the insulating layer of the photoreceptor, which has been uniformly charged, is subjected to alternating current corona discharge to attenuate the charge on the surface of the insulating layer, and at the same time, the photoreceptor is irradiated with laser. The phenomenon that occurs is shown in Figure 5.

FIG. 5 shows the state of change in surface potential on the surface of the insulating layer of the photoreceptor. FIG. 6 shows its equivalent circuit.

In Figure 6, E is the voltage applied to the discharge electrode of the AC corona discharger, Rc is the resistance when corona current flows between the discharge electrode and the photoreceptor, and Cp is the photoreceptor considered as a capacitance-only load. It shows the capacitance of the photoreceptor at the time.

As yet another embodiment (second example), an electrophotographic electrostatic image forming process as described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 19748/1974 by the present applicant is applied.

Note that various laser light sources that are currently announced or will be announced in the future can also be applied to the first and second latent image forming processes. It is important to devise a combination of photoreceptors whose spectral sensitivity characteristics match the wavelength of each laser.

Therefore, in such a recording apparatus, the photosensitive drum 308 is driven to rotate at a constant speed in the direction of the arrow, and the motor 306 is also driven so that the beam 312 moves over the photosensitive drum 308 at a constant speed.
08, and by modulating this beam with a controlled modulator 303 so as to draw the letter "A", a pattern as shown in FIG. 7 is formed on the photosensitive drum 308. It is possible to draw characters as shown in the figure below.

[Explanation of characters] As will be explained in detail later, this device can draw a certain character in three sizes: small, medium, and large, but the character pattern is as shown in Figure 7. It is composed of dots arranged in a matrix, and the lowercase letters are 7 as shown in Figure 7A.
drawn by selecting ×9 dots (i.e.,
(drawn by 9 scanning lines), and has a blank space equivalent to 6 scanning lines above the lowercase letter, and a blank space equivalent to 2 dots to the right of the character, and the blank space is What is included is the space required to output the information of one lowercase letter. The medium letters are drawn by selecting 14 x 18 dots as shown in Figure 7B (i.e., drawn by 18 scanning lines), and the top of the medium letters is drawn by 12 x 18 dots.
It has a blank area equivalent to a scanning line and a blank area equivalent to 4 dots to the right of the character, and the space including this blank area is the space required to output the information of one medium character. It is what it is.

The uppercase letter is drawn by selecting 36 x 28 dots (i.e., drawn by 36 scan lines) and the upper part of the uppercase letter is 24
A blank area corresponding to a scanning line is provided, and a blank area corresponding to 8 dots is provided to the right of the character,
The space equivalent to 60 x 36 dots including the blank space is the space required to output the information of one uppercase letter. However, as will be detailed later, for these uppercase letters, in order to simplify the configuration of the character generator, the same character generator as the medium letter generator is used, and one dot of the medium letter is used as 4 dots. The character resolution is the same as that of Chinese characters.

Although the outline of the recording unit 300 is as described above, returning to FIG. 1 again, the information providing unit 100 and the control unit 101 will be described in detail.

The information providing unit 100 is not necessarily limited to a magnetic tape as described above, but may be any other storage device or a computer itself, in short, any device that can derive the information to be recorded may be used. However, from the information providing unit 100, a signal encoding the information to be recorded in the recording unit and a control signal are derived, and such information is stored on a magnetic tape (not shown). It is stored in the format shown in Figure 8.

[Information Storage Form] That is, at standard density, information is stored in blocks on a magnetic tape as shown in Figure 8A, but each block is further made up of 34 unit areas (records). And this 1
The record further consists of 276 characters, and one block of this consists of 276 characters, as shown in Figure 9A.
136 characters per line in medium letters on the recording paper 103,
It stores information equivalent to one page consisting of 66 lines in the vertical direction.

To explain in more detail, the first record is an area for storing control signals, the first to third characters contain ID information, which will be described later, the fourth character contains function information, which will be described later, and the fifth character contains mode information. , multi-copy information is stored in the 6th and 7th characters, reduced print information is stored in the 7th character, and no meaningful information is stored in the 9th to 276th characters in the first record. be.

In this way, only the control information is stored in the first record, but in each of the second to 34th records, information such as characters and symbols (hereinafter referred to as characters) to be recorded in the recording unit 300 is stored. (hereinafter referred to as character information) and character size information (hereinafter referred to as size information) for specifying the size of characters for each line, specifically, the 2nd to 137th characters of a certain record. There is recording paper 103
The 136 character information constituting one line is encoded and stored (the 138th character is a blank space), and the character information stored in the 2nd to 137th characters is stored in the first character in the recording unit 30.
When recording with 0, size information that indicates the size of the character for one line at once is stored, and the 140th to 275th
The character similarly encodes and stores 136 character information (the 276th character is a blank space), and the 139th character collectively indicates the size of the characters or symbols stored in the 140th to 275th characters. It stores size information.

Although the 276th character in the 2nd to 34th records has been described as blank, the 276th character in the 34th record not only stores a page end signal but also includes a signal notifying the end of a certain program.

Therefore, one record stores character or symbol information for two lines of medium-sized characters and character size information indicating the size when recording the character or symbol information in each line. record 33
Each page can store information for one page as shown in FIG. 9A.

[Storage format of high-density recording information] Figure 8B shows a storage format of information to be recorded at high density (hereinafter referred to as high-density format).
In such a case, 272 character or symbol information is stored in the 2nd to 273rd characters of the 2nd to 34th records, the 274th to 276th characters are blank, and the information is stored in the 1st character and the 2nd to 273rd characters. The configuration is similar to that described with respect to FIG. 8A, except that information specifying the character size is stored.

Such high-density information consists of 272 characters per line on A4 size recording paper 103 in lowercase letters as shown in FIG. 9B.
and 132 such lines are provided, so 4
Each block contains information for one page of A size.

Note that the record number corresponding to the last line of the page
The 276 character stores an end mark to notify the end of the page.

Note that if the font size is specified as uppercase in the information storage format shown in FIG. Items 70 to 137 and 208 to 275 are treated as information and are not printed.

In this embodiment, the control signal as described above is provided, and the following instructions can be given using this signal.

That is, mode information indicates whether the character information is standard density as shown in Figure 8A or high density information as shown in Figure 8B, and function information indicates whether the information to be recorded is fixed data or variable. (Here, fixed data refers to data that is commonly used for each page when two pieces of information are superimposed and recorded on one page. Therefore, when one piece of information is superimposed on another piece of information, After printing, if both data are unnecessary, either of the two data can be used as solid data or variable data, but for example, when recording multiple addresses with different addresses for each body text with the same content. In this case, the main text is fixed data and the destination is variable data. Data that does not require overlapping is considered variable data. Furthermore, when indicating that it is variable data, (fixed data and ) contains a signal that instructs whether or not to overlap.Reduced printing information is information for reducing 4 pages (not necessarily limited to 4 pages, but may be more than one page) on one page of output paper (hereinafter referred to as such printing). Should I print one page of information in one page?
This instructs whether or not to print on the page (hereinafter referred to as normal printing).

Note that ID information indicates the unique number of a certain program, and when a certain program consists of n blocks, it is provided only in the first block, and when printing is started from a specific program, this program must be used. Used as a means of specifying.

Also, the multi-information specifies the number of copies.

Since a large amount of information is stored in block units as shown in FIG. 8 on the magnetic tape, the magnetic tape control circuit 1 of the control unit 101
By applying a control output from 04 to the magnetic tape control line 105 to control the reading of information from the magnetic tape, the read information is obtained on the output line 106.

The magnetic tape control circuit 104 controls the reading of information on the magnetic tape in units of blocks, and the information in this block is derived from the first record side.

As mentioned above, character information is stored as coded information on the magnetic tape, and in this embodiment, the EBICDIC code is used as such code, so in order to convert such code into ASC11 code, the output line The information on 106 is applied to code converter 107. Of course, the code converter 107 can be omitted or changed depending on the code to be stored on the magnetic tape or the code used in the control unit 101.

The information converted into ASC11 code in this way is applied to the distributor 108;
classifies the size information, information to be recorded, and control signals, and sends the size information and recording information to the signal line 10.
9, and the ID signal is routed through the signal line 110.
The function signal is stored in the function register 118 via the signal line 113, the mode signal is stored in the mode register 117 via the signal line 112, and the function signal is stored in the mode register 117 via the signal line 113. The reduced printing signal is stored in the reduced printing register 118 via the signal line 114.
9 to be memorized.

The size information and character information are stored in a page buffer register (hereinafter referred to as PBF) 121 or PBF 122 via a gate 120, and this buffer register 121 is a register used to store the fixed data. Said 1
The PBF 122 has a capacity (approximately 9 Kbytes) that can store block information, and the PBF 122 is a register used to store the fluctuating data.
4 registers BF with storage capacity equal to 1
Consists of 121-1 to 121-4, with a capacity of approximately 36K.
This is a byte storage device, and any random access memory (RAM) that satisfies the required access time may be used. In this embodiment, a semiconductor memory is used.

Since the PBF 121 and PBF 122 have independent address counters 123, 124, and 125, both PBFs can be read out simultaneously.

The PBF 122 has two address counters 124 and 125. The address counter 124 controls writing and reading of recorded information in the BFs 122-1 to 122-4, and the address counter 125 controls the writing and reading of recorded information in the BFs 122-3 and BF122-3. It controls reading of stored information from 122-4.
By providing multiple page buffers in this way, it is possible to simultaneously read the recorded information on multiple BFs and record two pieces of information on one recording paper in an overlapping manner. It is also possible to record minute information in small letters on one page.

As mentioned above, size information and character information are PBF1
21 or PBF 122, and this determination is controlled by a gate signal applied to the gate 120 from the write control circuit 126.

The outputs of the registers 117-119 are applied to a write control circuit 126, where the gates 120
It forms the gate signal that controls the
There are eight types of combinations of these three command signals as shown below.

However, when instructing variable data, there are two types: a case where an instruction is given to read out overlapping with fixed data, and a case where no instruction is given.

(1) Fixed data standard density, normal printing (2) Fixed data standard density, reduced printing (3) Variable data (overlapping) standard density, normal printing (4) Variable data (overlapping) high density, normal printing (5) Variable data (overlapping) standard density, reduced printing (6) Variable data (non-overlapping) standard density, normal printing (7) Variable data (no overlapping) high density, normal printing (8) Variable data (non-overlapping) standard density, reduced printing Any other combination is an error.

In such a command signal, in the case of (1) above,
To PBF121, in case of (2) to PBF121, in case of (3) to PBF121-1, in case of (4) to PBF12
2-1 to 4, in case of (5), PBF122-1 to 4
In case of (6), go to PBF122-1, in case of (7) go to
to PBF122-1 to 4, and in the case of (8) PBF
The gate signals are formed so that the size and character information are written to 122-1 to 122-4, respectively.

In this way, PBF121 or PBF12
The information applied to address counters 123 and 1 is controlled by the write control circuit, which is applied from the write control circuit 126 to signal lines 127 and 128.
24 is stored in the PBFs 121 and 122 sequentially.

Note that when the write control circuit 126 determines that the control signal for a certain page instructs reduced printing, the information for four pages is continuously sent to the PBF 122-1 to
122-4.
However, if one program ends without satisfying four PBFs, only the page that ends this program will be read, and therefore, in such a case, there is a possibility that the number of pages will be less than four. .

When the information has been stored in the PBF as described above, a write end signal is applied to the main control circuit 130 via the signal line 129, and upon application of this write end signal, the main control circuit 130 sends a signal to the read control circuit 131. Line 132 provides a read command signal.

Next, such information is read out and printed. For example, the control circuit as described in (6) above, that is, the information characters with control signals for variable data (non-overlapping), standard density, and normal printing. To describe the state in which the size information and size information are stored in the PBF 122-1, the read control circuit 131 stores the information of the registers 117 to 119 on the signal line 133.
Since it is applied by ~135,
Here, it is determined that the stored information is stored in the PBF 122-1, and the signal line 136 instructs the address counter 124 to read the BF 122-1.

[Address Counter] Here, regarding the address counter 123, the fourteenth
To explain in more detail with reference to the figure, this address counter includes a reference counter 205 that counts the start address of each line on the PBF, and a relative counter 206 that counts the relative character position on each line.
These two counters 205, 20
The contents of 6 are added by an adder 207, and the address on the PBF 121 is specified by the output of this addition.

In more detail, the reference counter 20
Reference numeral 5 denotes an output terminal 211 for deriving the respective outputs of a plurality of storage elements constituting the counter in parallel, and a terminal for applying a row completion signal to notify that all scanning of a certain row has been completed. 212 and the reference counter 205 before starting printing of a certain page.
It has a clear terminal 213 for clearing the contents of. The relative counter 206 also has an output terminal 218 for deriving the outputs of each of the plurality of storage elements constituting the counter in parallel, and for applying a digit end signal to notify that scanning of a certain character has been completed. and a clear terminal 216 for clearing the contents of the relative counter 206 by applying a scanning line end signal generated when scanning of a certain scanning line is completed.

The output terminal 218 is connected in parallel to the storage elements that constitute the lower digits of the register 207, and the output terminal 211 is connected in parallel to the storage elements that constitute the upper digits of the register 207.

To explain in more detail, the number of lower digits is the number of digits required to count the number of characters NC stored in one line, and when one bit is written to the LSD of the upper digit, the NC is added to the register 207 as a whole. The number of upper digits may be determined by counting the number of lines included in one page.

Therefore, when one digit end signal is applied from 215, the count value of register 207 increases by 1, and when one line completion signal is applied, the count value increases by 1, which is equal to the number of characters included in one line NC. register 2
The count value of 07 increases.

In short, the register 207 operates as an adder.

The address counter 123 has the above-described configuration, and since the counters 205 and 206 are cleared before reading out the PBF 121, the register 207, which functions as an adder,
The output is 0, which specifies address 0, that is, the address of the first character information in the first line of a certain page.

When this reading is completed, a digit completion signal is applied and 1 is added to the contents of the relative counter 206, so the output of the register 207 becomes 1, specifying the address of the character in the second digit of the first row.

After that, if you continue reading in the same way and read the NC character (when the output of register 207 becomes NC-1), it means that the first reading of the first line has been completed (as will be described in detail later), In this embodiment, one line of characters is formed by a plurality of m scanning lines, so in order to complete printing one line, information on the same line must be read out m times repeatedly. An end of line signal is generated to clear relative counter 206.

Therefore, the output of the register 207 becomes "0" again, and after reading m characters as described above, the scanning line end signal is generated again. By repeating such operations, the m-th scanning line end signal is derived, and at the same time, the row completion signal is applied to the terminal 21 of the reference counter 205.
2, the counter 205 adds NC to the contents of the register 207, and its output is
Becomes NC.

This NC is the address where the first character of the second line is stored, so read the first character,
The digit completion signal applied upon completion of such reading causes the output of the register 207 to become NC+1, indicating the address of the second character on the second row.

In the same way, when the output of the repeat register 207 becomes 2NC-1, the scanning line end signal is applied, and the address specification from NC address to NC+1, ...2NC-1 is repeated again, and at the second line, the scanning line end signal is applied. At the same time that is derived m times, the content of the reference counter becomes 2NC, the content of the relative counter 206 becomes 0, and the reading of the third line is repeated. By repeating the above readout, information equivalent to one page is read out. Since the reference counter and relative counter are used in this way, even when character information on the same line is read out repeatedly, the relative counter is simply used. All you have to do is clear the , and read control becomes extremely simple.

Although only the address counter 124 has been described in detail here, the address counters 123, 1
25 is configured in exactly the same way, and when the diagram in FIG. 14 is used in connection with the address counter 123, the subscript (-1) is added to the number used in FIG. When used in connection with the counter 125, the subscript (-2) is used. 136, 139 are size latches, 1
Size information recorded at the forefront of each line of character information to be recorded in a line is recorded, and the address counter 125
The information read out by specifying the size latch 139
The gate 137 is controlled by the read control circuit 131 via the signal line 140 so that the data is stored in the data.

Therefore, in the above example, since the read control circuit 131 issues a read command to the address counter 124 via the signal line 136, the gate 137 is controlled so as to lead the read character size information to the size latch 138.

Next to the character size information, character information is read out. After reading out the character size information, the gate 137 controls the readout control circuit 131 so as to lead the read information to the data latch 141.
It is controlled by

When the readout control circuit 131 determines that the size information is standard density information, this gate 137 reads out the size information as it is, and
While reading information corresponding to 6 characters, readout information is sequentially applied to the data latch 141, and when the reading of a certain row is completed, readout information is applied to the data latch sequentially from the beginning of the 136 characters again. It is something that is controlled repeatedly. (When printing of a certain line is not completed) Also, when the readout control circuit 131 determines that the information is high-density information, the character size information is read and the information film information corresponding to 275 characters is read. The period in which read information is applied to the data latch 141 is controlled to repeat.

The size latches 138 and 139 are provided with decoders 142 and 143, respectively, and these decoders 142 and 143 decode large, medium, and small character size information. This data 142,
Signal lines 144 and 145 are connected to 143 from the readout control circuit 131, and these signal lines apply control signals during reduced printing to decode uppercase letters as medium letters and decode medium letters as lowercase letters. However, in the case of normal printing, no control signal is applied.

The output of either of these decoders 142, 143 is led out onto a signal line 144 via a gate 145, but in the case of a reduced printing signal, it functions as a gate to allocate and select the output of either decoder by time, and in the case of normal printing, 142 outputs. That is, in reduced printing, when the decoder 142 is selected, the output of the decoder 142 is applied to the signal line 144, and when the decoder 143 is selected, the output of the decoder 143 is applied to the signal line 144. It is controlled by a read control circuit via a signal line 146 as shown in FIG.

147 and 148 are line counters, each of which counts the number of scanning lines required to form a character;
After counting a predetermined number, a row completion signal is applied to the readout control circuit 131 via signal lines 226 and 227.
When the output size of 43 is a small letter, the output is derived after counting 15 scanning lines, as is clear from FIG. 7A, and when it is a medium letter, the output is derived after counting 30 scanning lines. It is made up of As will be described later, uppercase letters are constructed in the same way as medium letters.

Note that by applying the vertical output from the vertical clock circuit 149 to the counting circuit selected in this way,
This vertical output is counted, and since this vertical output is generated every time a certain scanning of the recording drum by the laser beam starts or ends, the line counters 147, 14
The output No. 8 instructs which position of a certain character to scan.

Note that uppercase characters also serve as a middle character generator, so when an uppercase character is detected, the reduction printing signal is used so that the count of the vertical output becomes 1/2, that is, 1 is counted by 2 vertical clocks. It is equipped with a controlled gate. The outputs of the line counters 147 and 148 are applied to a change circuit 152 via a gate 151, and the change circuit 1
The output of 52 is further applied to a character generation circuit 150. The gate 151, like the gate 145, is controlled by a control signal on the signal line 146, and selects the output of one of the counters only during reduced printing, and selects the output from the line counter during normal printing. It operates to select.

[Character Generating Circuit] Now, to describe the character generating circuit 150 in more detail, this circuit is shown in FIGS. 1 and 10.
As shown in FIG. A, the character information from the output line 153 of the data latch 141 and the character size information derived from the signal line 144 are applied to apply the character information to the lowercase character generation terminal 155 of the character generator 154. , a selection circuit 15 that selects whether to apply the voltage to the medium character generation terminal 156 (when the character size information indicates an uppercase character, apply the voltage to the medium character generation terminal 156).
7 and character information applied from terminal 155 or 156, output line 1 from change circuit 152
The dot signals corresponding to the scanning lines selected by the output signals on the dot output line 158 are outputted in parallel to the dot output line 158.

This dot output line 158 is connected to the dot output line 1 when a lower case size signal is applied from the signal line 144.
58 D1 to D7 at the same time, the signal line 14
When a medium character size signal or an uppercase character size signal is applied from 4, D1 of the dot output line 158
-D14, signals are obtained simultaneously.

Lowercase letter size “A” with reference to Figure 10B.
To explain when generating , the information code signal of the letter A and the lowercase size information are sent to the selection circuit 157 via the signal line 144 via the output line 153.
, the information code signal for the letter A is applied to the lowercase letter generation terminal 155.

At this time, if a signal indicating the first scanning line is applied to the character generator 154 via the output line 159, then the dot output lines D1 to D7 correspond to the dots 160 to 162 of the first scanning line in Figure B. It is possible to obtain outputs from D3 to D5. Similarly, when a signal instructing the second scanning line is applied to the output line 159, the dot output lines D1 to D7 correspond to the dot 1 of the second scanning line in Figure B.
63 and 164, outputs can be obtained at D2 and D6. Thereafter, by sequentially instructing the scanning line numbers up to 9 in the same manner, outputs can be obtained from the dot output lines D1 to D7 corresponding to the dots shown in B. The generation of the dot signal for lowercase letters has been described in detail here, but when a middle letter is specified, the character information is applied to the middle letter generation terminal 156, and a signal indicating the scanning line number is also applied from the output line 159. The output line 159 generates a dot signal corresponding to the scanning line specified by the output line 159. However, as shown in FIG. There are 1 to 18 scanning lines to be specified, and when such scanning lines are specified, dot output lines D1 to D14
It is possible to obtain output at the same time. In this way, dot output lines D1 to D7 or D1
The dot outputs output in parallel to D14 are simultaneously written in parallel to the shift register 165. This shift register 165 is shifted by a clock pulse from a horizontal clock generator 166 that generates a clock signal synchronized with the speed at which the laser beam 312 scans the photosensitive drum 308, so it is shifted sequentially as the laser beam moves. It is read from the dot output D1 side.

Assuming that FIG. 7B is the letter A to be drawn on the photosensitive drum 308, when the laser beam is at the first column position C1 of the first scanning line, the shift register 165 outputs the first dot. When the readout laser beam is located at the second column position C2, a shift pulse is applied to read out the output of the second dot D2, and when the laser beam is located at the third column position C3, a shift pulse is applied to read the output of the second dot D2.
The structure is such that when the laser beam moves one column position, one shift pulse is applied to shift one bit by reading out the third output.

When scanning to a predetermined column position on a scanning line for a certain character is completed in this way, the next character information is read out to the data latch 141, the dot signal corresponding to the certain scanning line is read out, and this is sent to the shift register 165. Although the data is transferred in parallel, if you read out one character information and then immediately read the next character information in this way, the adjacent characters will be too close to each other and will be difficult to read.
Since this is not practical, in this embodiment, a blank space equivalent to 2 dots is provided between characters for lowercase letters, as shown in FIG. 7A, and a blank space of 4 dots is provided for medium letters. be.

In FIG. 10A, reference numeral 167 is a blank area forming circuit provided to form such a blank area 7, and it applies a blank signal to the shift register 165. That is, dot output lines D8, D9
A lowercase blank line 169 is connected to the lowercase letter blank line 169, and a middle letter blank line 170 is connected to the storage element connected to the dot output line D14 in the shift register 165. When lowercase letter size information is applied via the signal line 144, the lowercase letter blank line 169 A blank signal is applied to the storage elements corresponding to the eighth and ninth column positions of the shift register 165, and when large or medium character size information is applied via the signal line 144, the medium character blank line 170 is applied. Apply a blank signal to the shift register 16
The voltage is applied to the storage elements corresponding to the 15th to 18th column positions of No. 5.

In this way, the blank part forming circuit 167 is provided,
A part of the horizontal clock generator 166 includes a lower case counting circuit which counts 9 clock pulses and sends a completion signal to the readout control circuit 131 via the signal line 171 upon completion of counting and resets to 0, and a lower case counting circuit which counts 18 clock pulses and sends a signal upon completion of counting. A middle character counting circuit that sends a completion signal to the readout control circuit 131 through line 171 and returns to zero, counts 36 clock pulses, and upon completion of counting sends a completion signal to readout control circuit 131 via signal line 171 and returns to zero. It has a gate circuit that determines to which counting circuit a clock pulse is applied based on the character size information added via the signal line 144, and a gate circuit that determines to which clock pulse the clock pulse is applied from the selected character counting circuit. Upon arrival of the completion signal, the read control circuit 131 controls the address counter 123,
This command instructs the selected characters 124 and 125 to read the next character.

Note that the character generation circuit 154 does not have a circuit for generating uppercase letters, but this is shown in FIG.
As is clear from C, this is no longer necessary because one dot of a medium letter is formed as four dots, but for this reason, the horizontal clock generator 166 changes the clock frequency when uppercase letter size information is applied. It has a frequency dividing circuit that divides the frequency by 1/2, and when uppercase character size information is applied through the signal line 144, a clock with a frequency of 1/2 of the normal frequency is applied to the shift register 165 from the shift pulse application line 168. This is to control how the voltage is applied.

As described above, by providing the horizontal clock generator 166 and the capital letter generating circuit 150, a predetermined blank space is formed between horizontally adjacent letters in accordance with the size of the letters.

However, if left as is, the lines, that is, the vertically adjacent characters, would be in close contact with each other, but in this embodiment, the outputs of the line counters 147 and 148 are changed to
, and then to the character generator 154, as shown in FIGS.
A digit end signal is received from the signal line 278 every time the clock pulses corresponding to the number of dots required to form a character are counted. Vertical clock circuit 149 (receives one digit end signal for each horizontal pulse, and for uppercase letters, one digit end signal for every 36 horizontal pulses)
The digit signal is used to count the number of characters corresponding to one line according to the size information, and upon completion of this counting, a scanning line end signal is sent to the line counters 147, 148.
It is sent to

A blank space equivalent to 6 scanning lines is formed above the character.For medium characters, a blank space corresponding to 12 scanning lines is formed above the character.For characters, a blank space corresponding to 24 scanning lines is formed above the character. This is how it was accomplished. However, in the changing circuit 152, no special circuit is used for forming uppercase letters, and the circuit for forming middle letters is shared as is.

Furthermore, to explain in detail, this modification circuit 1
52 passes through the gate 151 and also subtracts the number of scanning lines corresponding to the space between lines from the counter output (i.e., 6 for lower case letters, 12 for medium letters) and 6 depending on the size information. Subtract or
It includes a selection circuit that determines whether to subtract 12.

For example, when the printing of a certain line is completed and the 10th print of the next line is completed,
When starting printing as shown in Figure B, the line counter 147
Alternatively, if the output (1, 2, 3...15) of 148 is input as is to the scanning line instruction terminal of character generator 150, a blank area will not be formed at the top of the character, so the number of scans will be 6, which corresponds to the blank area. It adds blank spaces until it reaches .

With this configuration, the character generator has −
The outputs of 5, -4, -3...9 will be applied, and only when the count outputs of 1, 2...9 are applied, the character generator can be accessed and the character output will be derived. Therefore, -5, -4...
6 scan line periods counting 0, character generator 1
No character information is obtained from 50, and therefore this scanning line period is formed as a blank space.

FIG. 15 shows a specific example of the modification circuit 152 as described above. Here, the modification circuit 152 includes an adder 279, a lowercase complement circuit 280 that generates a complement corresponding to a scanning line of a lowercase blank space, and a It consists of a middle character complement circuit 281 that generates a complement corresponding to the scanning line of a character blank area, and a gate 282 that determines which complement circuit to select based on size information.The output of the line counter that has passed through the gate 151 283 and a complement generated according to the size information.

Therefore, when the augend from the output 283 exceeds 7 for lowercase letters and 14 for medium letters, a carry is output to the output line 284, which sends out a carry.Only when this carry exists, the character generation circuit 150 generates a character. By forming the signal so that it is sent out, the driving of the character generation circuit is not started until a predetermined scanning line is reached from the start of a scanning line in a certain row.

On the other hand, to explain the readout section of the BF121, from the readout control circuit 131 to the signal line 172
The address counter 123 operates under the control of the address counter 123, and the information of the address indicated by the address counter 123 is applied to the gate 174.
4, under the control of the read control circuit 131, when the recorded information is standard density information, the first and second
It operates to transfer the character size information of the 139th character to the size latch 175 similar to the size latch 138 or 139, and the character information of the 2nd to 137th and 140th to 275th characters to the data latch 176 similar to the data latch 141. .

The output of the size latch 175 is decoded by a size decoder 177 similar to the size decoders 142 and 143;
77 is a signal line 178 from the read control circuit 131
The control is such that the decoder 177 operates only when the fluctuation data indicates superimposition, and in other cases, the output of the decoder 177 is not derived.

The output of the decoder 177 is output to a vertical clock circuit 179 similar to the vertical clock circuit 149;
A horizontal clock generator 180 similar to the horizontal clock generator 166, and the line counters 147, 14.
A line counter 181 similar to 8, a character generation circuit similar to the character generation circuit 150, and the change circuit 1
It is applied to a change circuit 183 similar to 52.

Further, the output of the data latch 176 is applied to a character generation circuit 182 similarly to the data latch 141', and the output of this character generation circuit 182 is applied to a shift register 182 similar to the shift register 165.
4.

In other words, while the PBF 122 has two readout systems for reduced printing, the PBF 121 has only one readout system, and the structure of each block is the same for both.

Now, regarding the clock generation means, this device has a main clock generator 185 that serves as a reference for all clocks, and a high frequency (approximately 80 MHz in the embodiment) generated by this main clock generator 185. is further applied to a recording clock generator 186, which uses a recording clock (approximately 5 MHz) obtained by counting down the main clock for recording control.

However, this counterdown is not performed all the time, but is gated by the output of the beam detector 318 in the recording unit 102, and the countdown is started after this output is applied.

[Record Clock Generator] FIG. 11 shows the recording clock generator 186 in more detail, and as shown in FIG.
) is connected to the signal line 18 via the print control unit 187.
8 and applied to signal line 190 via interface 189, R-
Set the S flip-flop 191.

This set output is applied to the 1/16 frequency divider 192 and starts counting the main clock pulses (80 MHz) as shown in FIG. 12a, which are applied from the output line 193, and every 16 pulses as shown in FIG. 12c. A count pulse such as 194 is derived on output line 194.

This counting pulse is a predetermined number (in the example, 2
Counter 19 that derives an output when counting 00)
The output of this counter 195 is further applied to a gate 196, and the output line 194 is connected to the gate 196. Therefore, an output can only be obtained from the gate 196 after this counter 195 has counted a predetermined number N. Since this value is set to 200 in the embodiment, the pulses after the 200th pulse is output line 19
7.

The pulses on the output line 197 are further applied to a counter 198 which derives the output after counting a certain number n (2448 pulses in the embodiment), and the output of this counter 198 is inverted and applied to the gate 199.
By applying the voltage to the output line 200, the 12th
It is possible to obtain a certain number of pulses as shown in Figure e.

To explain the meaning of the counts N and m of the counters 195 and 198, when recording information by scanning the photosensitive drum 308 with the laser beam 312, the position at which recording starts is determined by a certain scanning line. It must be specified very precisely. If this regulation is not carried out accurately, the print start position will shift from scan line to scan line. For example, when characters are drawn using multiple scan lines as shown in Figure 7, each dot will not be accurately positioned on a straight line in the column direction. Instead, it appears as jitters.

For this reason, when the laser beam is swung from left to right as shown in FIG. Then, it is sufficient to start counting the clock frequency and start recording when this count reaches a certain number.

Since the clock frequency used for recording is approximately 5 MHz, if this 5 MHz clock is used as is for counting, the 80 MHz clock generator 185 as in this embodiment is not necessary, but in the present invention. In this case, the main clock generator 185 is used to accurately define the recording start position. That is, if only a 5 MHz clock generator is used and the counting of this clock is started by the output of the beam detector 318, the counting start error will occur by a maximum of one clock period. This one clock means a deviation equivalent to one dot, and means that a considerable amount of jitter appears in the printed characters.
Therefore, in this example, first the actual recording frequency is 5M.
A clock of 80 MHz, which is 16 times Hz, is formed, and the output of the beam detector 318 is used to operate the 1/16 frequency divider 19, and the output of the frequency divider is counted and calculated by the counter 195. The recording is intended to start from the time the numerical value reaches N.

Therefore, the counting start error is 1/16 of the maximum recording frequency.
Since only the clock cycle (5MHz clock) is generated, the error is at most 1/16 of one dot, which is within a range that can be used for practical purposes.

As is clear from the above explanation, the N determines the printing start position (left margin) on the scanning line, so by making the count N of the counter 195 variable, the left margin on the recording paper can be changed. It is something that can be adjusted.

Note that instead of making the count value N of the counter 195 variable, as shown in FIG.
The output of the numerical value setter 203, which can be manually set, is applied to the comparator 202, and the comparator 202 determines whether the two outputs match. Of course, the output may be derived from the output line 204.

The count value M of the counter 198 determines the position on one scanning line at which information recording should end, and in the case of medium-sized characters, the space for one character is 18 dots, and such characters are placed in one line. 136
Since it is a device that can record 18 characters from the recording start position.
This is to stop sending out the clock for recording control when the scanning line moves by an amount equivalent to x136=2448 dots (the same applies to lowercase and uppercase letters).

Note that in FIG. 12, C' is the same as C, only the time axis has been changed. Further, in the circuit shown in FIG. 11, the set output of the flip-flop 191 is applied to the reset input,
A flip-flop 285 is provided in which the output of the counter 198 is connected to a set input via a delay circuit 286 with a delay time τ, and the set output of this flip-flop 285 is as shown in FIG. 12f,
As soon as the beam detector gains detection power, the level changes from high to low, and after a time τ has elapsed since the recording of information is completed (this τ is the time since the laser beam recorded the last character in a certain line). , the recording area of the recording medium, in this case the area defined by the A4 size, changes from a low level to a high level).

In this embodiment, the shift register 184 or 165 applied to the video information generator 287
The output of the clock generator 186 and the control signal as shown in FIG.
It is applied to Applying not only the output of the shift register but also the control signal to the modulator in this way suppresses the beam so that it does not irradiate the recording area of the photosensitive drum except when drawing characters, and also controls the beam detector. This is to release the suppression so that the beam can be detected.

In this embodiment, a beam detector 318 is used to detect the position of the beam, and the beam position detector 318 is arranged in a positional relationship with the photosensitive drum (recording paper) as shown in FIG. It is what it is.

That is, on the photosensitive drum 308, the area indicated by the width W is the area to be transferred to the transfer material (recording paper), and the beam 31 is directed on the straight line indicated by the dotted line L.
2 repeatedly scans in the direction of arrow R in the figure, the beam detector 318 has a width W
The beam 312-1 is placed at a position where it can detect a beam located further to the left than the beam 312-1 located at the left end. If the beam detector is fixedly installed in this way and the beam deflection speed is kept constant, the position of the beam can be accurately determined by counting the constant clock frequency from the time the beam is detected. It is something that can be done.

Therefore, as described in detail in the embodiment, the beam can be modulated based on information corresponding to the beam position, and characters can be recorded.

In Fig. 21, if the width V is the area where recording is performed (a modulation signal is applied to the modulator based on the PBF information only when the beam scans this area), dL, dR are These are the left margin and right margin spaces on the recording paper, and these areas must be configured so that the beam is not irradiated.

In the present invention, a flip-flop 285 as shown in FIG. 11 is provided for this purpose, a control signal as shown in FIG. The 21st
To further explain with reference to the drawings, the beam detector 31
8 detects the beam until τ time after it is located at the right end of the beam width V (where τ is longer than the time the beam reaches the right end of the width W).
Between the control signal such as turning off the beam and the width V
The beam is controlled using both character signals from the PBF.

Therefore, the beam is OFF in the interval dL and dR.
The beam for drawing characters is irradiated only within the width V.

As described above, in this embodiment, the beam position is detected by the beam detection output, and the use of such a beam detector makes it extremely easy to manufacture the rotating polygon mirror 305.

That is, the position of the beam can be detected by detecting the rotation of the motor 306 as in the conventional method, but if such a method is used, the processing accuracy of the polygon mirror must be extremely strict. However, by installing a beam detector as described above and using the detection output to start clock counting, and using the counting to detect the beam position, the accuracy of the polygon mirror is about 10 times lower than before. It does not cause any inconvenience at all.

Moreover, specifically, since the recording clock is created by a frequency divider triggered by the beam detection output, it is possible to create a recording clock with a stable frequency and at low cost. be.

Here, if I were to explain a part that has not been explained on the drawings so far, I would like to explain the part 217 in Fig. 1.
The operation panel shown by is a switch 290 for specifying an ID number, a switch 291 for specifying a negative value for the ID, and a corresponding location on the magnetic tape based on both of the above inputs. Search command switch for specifying search, start and stop switch 293, number of copies set switch 2
94, automatic/manual number of sheets changeover switch 295, reduced printing control switch 2 having a normal printing command switch, a reduced printing command switch, and an automatic mode switch;
96 and a power switch 297.

Furthermore, in FIG. 1, numeral 289 is a three-phase clock generator that generates a clock for sequential control.

In FIG. 11, a terminal 288 is a terminal for obtaining a down-stepped clock signal, and is used as a clock for reading size information into a size latch.

Having explained the outline of the configuration of the recording apparatus according to the present invention above, the operation during actual use will be described in detail below.

[Operation explanation]

First, before use, turn on the power switch 220 provided in the print control section 187 of the recording unit 102 to make the recording unit ready for use.
(The laser oscillator 301
By keeping it always ON regardless of 0,
This eliminates the need to wastefully wait for the rise and transition time of the laser oscillator 301. ) Next, the operation panel 21
The power switch on the control unit 9 is turned on to put the control unit 101 into a standby state. When simply recording the output of the information submission unit 100 in accordance with a control signal sent from the unit, the start switch 293 is pressed and this switch signal is applied to the main control circuit 130 to form a start signal. is applied to the magnetic tape control circuit 104,
The control signals for the first program are read from the tape in the supply unit 100 and stored in instruction registers 115-119, respectively.

Also, as described above, if you do not press the start switch directly but specify the ID before pressing the search command switch 292, this ID information is sent to the main control circuit 13.
The comparator 225 compares the contents of the ID register 115 with the contents of the ID register 115, and only moves the tape until the two match, at which point the tape is stopped.

The number of copies can also be specified using a switch, but the automatic-manual switch 295 determines whether the number of copies is determined based on the information in the multi-register 116 or whether priority is given to the number input from the panel.
It is formed so that it can be selected.

As described above, the control signals read into each of the mode, function, and reduced printing registers are discriminated to determine which PBF to store the character information in. If the character information to which it belongs is variable data and the reduction control signal indicates that it should be printed normally,
The write control circuit 126 controls the gate 120 and the address counter 124,
The character information (including character size information) of this first page is stored in the PBF 122-1. When writing of the character information on the first page is completed, the write control circuit 126 applies an end signal to the main control circuit 130, and the circuit 130 gives a read stop command to the magnetic tape control circuit 104, and the data is read out. Stop reading.

Further, the main control circuit 130 is a PBF122-1
Upon reception of the completion signal notifying that the writing has been completed, a read command is given to the read control circuit 131, and the circuit 131 controls the address counter 124.
and starts reading out the information on the first line of the first page of the stored information.

[Chinese character record]

Here, in the first line, type A in font size "medium",
If the character codes B, C,...N and 136 are stored, the read control circuit 131 determines the contents of the registers 117, 118, 119,
A control signal is applied to gate 137 to apply size information to size latch 138. The data stored in the size latch in this way is sent to the decoder 1.
42, and this decoded information is applied to the clock generator and counter to control them. At this time, the signal lines 144, 145
Since no reduction command signal is applied to , the medium character size information is decoded as the medium character size. That is, the vertical clock generator 149 is configured to generate a digit end signal every 18 horizontal clock pulses, and the number of clocks included in the recording area of one scanning line is 2448 clocks in this embodiment, which corresponds to 136 characters when converted to Chinese characters. The line counter 147 outputs the line end signal every time the line counter 147 counts the number of scan lines constituting one line, that is, 30 in the case of a medium character. is outputted and applied to the control circuit 131, the character generation circuit 150 is sent to select a medium character, and the register 279 of the change circuit 152 is sent to the register 279 of the change circuit 152.
is controlled so that the complement of "12" is applied from the middle character complement circuit 281.

When the reading of the size information is completed, the A-coded information corresponding to the first character is read out, but since the counters 205 and 206 of the address counter 124 are cleared before reading out, the PBF122-1 at the first clock pulse obtained on output line 200 in Figure 11.
Read data A into the data latch 141,
This read information is applied to the medium character terminal 156 of the character generator 141. At this time, line counter 14
7 is cleared and is in the "1" state.

Therefore, a signal indicating the first scan line is applied to the output line 159 of the character generator 154;
As is clear from FIG. 5, the complement from the middle character complement circuit 281 is applied to the adder 279, so the carry is not applied to the character generator 150. Therefore, in FIG. Dot output line 1
58 D1 to D14 are outputted as "0". Furthermore, since the blank area forming circuit 167 operates, "0" is also applied to the dot output lines D15 and D18, and as a result, the 1st to 18th stages of the shift register 165 (the read side is the 1st stage) is set to 0. At the same time as this setting, the signal from the first stage is read out and applied as a modulation signal to the modulator 303, but the beam is blocked and does not reach the photosensitive drum. It is assumed that the beam is cut off when a 0 signal is applied to the modulator 303, and passes when a 1 signal is applied to the modulator 303.

After 1/5 Msec from this state, the laser beam arrives at the next dot position and the horizontal clock is applied to the shift register 165. In this way, even if the beam advances by one dot position, no change appears in the control signals exchanged between each circuit block. Therefore, the second shift register 165
A "0" on the stage is read and applied to the modulator. When the scanning of the section corresponding to 18 dots is completed in this way, a digit end signal is applied from counter B (FIG. 16) of the vertical clock generator 149 to the terminal 215 of the address counter 124 via the readout control circuit 131. 1 to the contents of counter 217
is added, the output of register 207 becomes “1”, and
Control is performed to read out address 1 of PBF122-1, that is, the second character on the first line of the first page.Since the size information is still held in the size latch, the control is performed based on the size information. The circuits described above remain as described above.

In this way, the second character "B" code information is applied to the character generation circuit 150, but "0" is stored in the first to 18th stages of the shift register 165 in the same manner as described above. is read out along with horizontal pulses to modulate a laser beam moving in synchronization with the horizontal clock.

When the reading of the 136th character is completed in this way, the scanning line end signal is applied from the counter A included in the vertical clock circuit 149 to the line counter 147 as shown in FIG. 2” (meaning the second scan line), and
A scanning line completion signal is applied to the terminal 216 of the address counter 124 to set the contents of the counter 206 to “0”.
shall be. At this time, since the content of the counter 205 remains 0, reading of the character information of the first character on the first line is started again. Since the size information remains read when reading out the first scanning line, the contents of the circuit to be controlled by the size information do not change, but only the contents of the line counter 147 change from 1 to 2. be.

This second scanning line also has 1
The character information of the row is read out in sequence, and when the last N character is read out and scanning is completed, a scanning line end signal is again applied to the line counter 147 from the vertical clock circuit.

When the reading of the characters on the first line is repeated in this way and the reading of the information regarding the sixth scanning line is completed (that is, when the reading of the characters on the first line is completed six times)
A line scan end signal is applied to line counter 147 to change its contents from 6 to 7. After that, the seventh
In this state, as mentioned above, in the case of a medium character, the adder 2 goes to Fig. 15.
79 is applied to the character generation circuit, and the output of the adder 279 applies a first line instruction signal indicating the first line in the character generator, so that the first character " When reading “A”, D1 to D14 of the character generation circuit have
0000001100000 (the arrow indicates the reading direction of the shift register 165) is derived and transferred to the shift register, and "0" is transferred to D15 to D18 as described above, so D7 of D1 to D18
.about.D8 are "0". In the same way, the second character B is read out as the third character C, and when the 136th character N is read out, the line counter 1
After setting the content of 47 to 8, the process returns to reading the first character to form the eighth scanning line. During this scanning, a second line instruction signal is applied to the character generation circuit 150.

When the 30th reading related to the 30th scanning line is completed in this way, the 30th scanning line end signal is applied from the vertical clock circuit 149 to the line counter 147, but as described above, This line counter 147 outputs a scanning line end signal of 30 in the case of a medium character.
By counting, a row end signal is applied to the readout control circuit 131 as well as a reset. Therefore, this row end signal applied to the terminal 212 of the address counter 124 via the readout control circuit 131 causes the reference counter 205 to be reset. The content of is changed from 0 to 1, and this count output is sent to the register 207.
By transferring to the upper digit of register 207
The output of the register 217 is set to 138 (the contents of the register 217 are 0 because the scanning line completion signal is always applied together with the row end signal).

Therefore, the content of this address counter 124 is 138, so the first information on the second line, that is,
This is an instruction to read size information.

Therefore, first, the size information is read into the size latch 136 in the same manner as described above, and then the reading of the second line is repeated in the same manner as described for reading the first line, and it is determined that the second line is also a medium character. Then, as before, the second row is completed with 30 scanning lines.

By repeating such scanning, when all reading of the 66th line is completed, the readout of the page end signal stored in the last character of the 66th line is ANDed by the line completion signal from the line counter 147. 1
The end of the page is detected by the readout control circuit,
Stop reading from PBF122-1.

When such a stop is detected, reading of the next page from the magnetic tape is started again, and information is read from the PBF and recorded as described above.

[Capital letter record]

Above, we have described the case of medium letters, but in the case of uppercase letters, the size information read by the size latch 138 and decoded by the decoder 142 is
As shown in Figure 7, the clock frequency applied to the gate A of the horizontal clock generator 166 and applied to the shift register 165 is halved by passing it through the 1/2 circuit (this means that the same stage information is read twice). The vertical clock circuit controls the vertical clock generator 149 each time the vertical clock circuit derives the end-of-digit signal (same as for the middle character) every horizontal clock 18; The controller 149 sends a scanning line completion signal to the line counter 147 every time one scanning line is completed, as in the case of medium characters.
52 is also controlled in the same way as in the case of medium letters, but as shown in FIG. 18, when the line counter 147 receives uppercase letter size information, it controls gate B to pass through the 1/2 circuit. Control is performed so that two scanning line completion signals are received and one count is increased.

That is, by halving the clock frequency applied to the shift register 165 in the column direction, and doubling the count of the line counter 147 in the row direction, one dot obtained when a medium character is displayed in the column. The dots are read out twice in the direction and twice in the row direction for a total of four dots.

For example, if we read out and record information consisting of 33 lines with 68 characters per line called A, B, ...N as described above, after reading out the size information, Data latch A 1
41, and the character generation circuit 150 transfers "0" from the first stage to the 18th stage of the shift register 165, as in the case of medium characters.

At the same time as this transfer, the first
0 is read from the stage and modulated by the modulator 303, but since the shift pulse of the shift register 165 is lowered to 1/2 the frequency, even if the laser beam arrives at the position of the second dot, the shift register 1
65 is not shifted like in the case of medium characters, but continues to read the first stage information as it is. Next, when the laser beam arrives at the position of the third dot, the shift pulse is applied to shift register 1.
65 for second stage reading. When one character is read out in this way,
During this period, the digit end signal is sent to the vertical clock circuit 14 twice.
9 (because it uses the same circuit as for Chinese characters).

Continue reading the first line in this way.
When the last character of the 68th digit is read, a 136th digit end signal is sent and the vertical clock circuit 14
9, a scanning line end signal is applied to the line counter 147, but this line counter is incremented by 1 only when two scanning line end signals are applied when uppercase character size information is applied. The contents do not change, and the signal instructing the first scan remains derived.

Therefore, when the first readout of the first row is completed and the second readout is performed, the same information as in the first scan is read out, and moreover, the laser beam is scanning the second scan position. Because it is a thing,
In the case of uppercase letters, as is clear from FIGS. 7B and 7C, one dot of a medium letter is read four times as many times.

In case of upper case size, numbers 70 to 137, 207
~275 characters are not read.

[Lowercase Recording] Next, to record lowercase letters as an example of high-density information, the write control circuit 126
When it is determined that the information is high-density information, the gate 120 is controlled so that the size and character information is PBF.
122, and PBF122-1~
Control is performed so that one page's worth of high-density information is sequentially written into all of 4 (because high-density information has an amount of information four times that of standard density).

If information is recorded in PBF in this way,
Next, reading is instructed, and as in the case of uppercase letters, the size information is first stored in the size latch 138 and decoded by the decoder 142, and the size information of the decoded lowercase letters is as follows:
The vertical clock generator 166 is controlled such that a digit end signal is derived from the vertical clock generator 149 every nine clocks, and the line counter 147
As shown in FIG. 8, the conversion circuit 152 applies the row completion signal to the readout control circuit 131 at the scanning line end signal of 15, and the conversion circuit 152 converts the six's complement number to the lowercase complement circuit 280.
As derived from the above, a "0" signal is applied to D8 and D9 from the empty opening forming circuit 167 so that the gate 282 is controlled and the selection circuit 157 of the character generating circuit 150 is controlled so that character information is applied to the lowercase character generating terminal. is applied, and the address counter 124 is controlled to count up by 276 due to the row completion signal by the signal which is high-density information.

In the figure, the address register that counts up 276 times is not shown in detail, but this register 207 has a reference counter 20
5. Similarly to the relative register 206, a reference counter for high density and a relative counter that further counts up by 276 are provided, and when it is determined that the density is high, these two counters are added to the counters 205 and 206.
It is only necessary to configure it so that it can be used by switching between the two.

Assuming that the character information in the first line of the page with this high-density information to be printed is "A", B..."N",
After reading the size information as described above, when the first character A is read, this information is sent to the character generator 154.
D1 to D of the shift register 165
7 to 0 (by the action of the conversion circuit 152, the first 6
(because the scan line is formed as a blank space), and D
8. Since "0" is derived from D9 as described above, "0" is stored in the first to ninth stages of the shift register 165, and sequentially read out by printing to the horizontal clock and moved in synchronization with this clock. The laser beam is modulated according to the information read out from the shift register.

Upon completion of the 9th horizontal clock, a digit end signal is sent to the address counter 12 via the read control circuit 131.
4, the contents of the relative counter are incremented by one, and the second character is commanded to be read. Based on this command, the second character is read out in the same manner as described above. In this way
When the 272nd character has been read, a scanning line end signal is sent from the vertical clock circuit 149 to the line counter 147, and is also sent to the address counter 124 via the readout control circuit 131, clearing the relative counter, and reading the first character again. Commands reading of the first character of the line.

When the 15th reading of the character information on the first row is completed in this manner, a row completion signal is applied from the line counter 147 to the address counter 124 via the read control circuit 131, and the contents of the reference counter are set to 1 and the register 207 The contents of the address counter are advanced by 276, and the contents of the address counter are advanced by the number of characters corresponding to one line. Therefore, the address counter 124 indicates the address of the first character on the second line.

By repeating the above reading, the last reading of the 132nd line is completed and a line completion signal is output from the line counter 147, and when it is detected that the above-mentioned page end signal has been read out, This is to detect the end of a page.

The above is about printing large, medium and small characters, PBF1
22-1 has been described in detail, but as explained in the eight combinations of control signals explained previously, when fixed data is read from PBF 121 using address counter 123, when using PBF 122-2 to 4 when printing reduced size When reading variable data using the address counter 125, each data is read in the same manner as described above.

[Reduced Printing] Next, the mode of reduced printing (bag-stitch printing) will be described in detail. As outlined in Figure 9C, this reduced printing is to print four pages of information on one page of recording paper, and in this figure, all pages A and all pages are printed on PBF122-1 to PBF122-4, respectively. Page B,
A case is shown in which information for all pages C and all pages D is stored.

On the magnetic tape, all pages A with medium letters are in the nth block, and all pages B with capital letters are in the n+1 block.
However, if the n+2 block stores information about all pages C with uppercase letters, and the n+3 block stores information about all pages D with medium letters, and the control signal for each page instructs reduced printing, the write control circuit 126 When reading information from the magnetic tape, detects this reduction printing command and transfers the n-th block to PBF 122-1, the n+1-th block to PBF 122-2, and the n+2-th block to PBF 122-2.
The address counter 124 is controlled so that the block is stored in the PBF 122-3 and the n+3 block is stored in the PBF 122-4 (the address counter 125 is read-only). However, the block referred to here is one in which the first record of the control signal has been removed. Reading starts after waiting for the end of such writing, but the address counter 125
can be used only for reading out PBFs 122-3 and 122-4, therefore, address counter 124 is used only for reading out PBFs 122-1 and 122-2 during reduced printing. In the case of reduced printing, as can be seen from Figure 9C, one scanning line writes information for two pages, and the seam of this page, A in the figure.
Since there is no special blank space between and C or between B and D, there is no time to read out the size information when recording character information located on the right side in the figure.

Therefore, in this embodiment, in the case of the above-mentioned bag-stitch printing, etc., prior to reading out information spanning one or two pages, the readout control circuit 131 includes a control circuit, and after the output of the beam detector 318 is applied. Corresponds to the period until the beam leaves the recording position
A counter C that counts the 5 MHz recording clock (the waveform of which is shown in Figure 12f) is used to count the 5MHz recording clock (the waveform of which is shown in Figure 12f) at a certain time before the beam records information, such as CP1 in Figure 12f. address counter 12
5 to read the character size information of the first line of PBF 122-3, and also controls gate 137 to store this size information in size latch 139.

The information stored in the size latch 139 in this way is decoded by the decoder 143, but since the reduction command signal is applied to the signal line 145, the size information actually taken in by the decoder 143 is in uppercase letters. However, the line counter 148 is decoded as a medium character, which is the size of the next lower size, and the line counter 148 is controlled as described above according to the medium character information.

Next, the size information of the first row of the PBF 122-1 is read out from the clock pulse CP2 following the aforementioned clock pulse, and along with this, the size information of the first row of the PBF 122-1 is read out.
is controlled and the size information is sent to the size latch 138
Store in. This size information is decoded by the decoder 142, but since a reduction command signal is applied from the signal line 144, the read information is medium letters, but it is decoded as lowercase letters, and the line counter 147 is controlled according to lowercase information.

Once the size information has been read out in this way, the first row
At the same time, the character information of the character is read out to the data latch 141, and the readout control circuit 131 reads out the character information of the character to the gate 14.
5 to transmit the lowercase letter size information of the decoder 142 to the horizontal clock generator 166, the conversion circuit 152,
These signals are applied to the character generation circuit 150 to control each of them in the same manner as in the case of printing lowercase letters as described above. However, in this case, unlike the case of high-density information, one line ends in the middle of one line (2448 clocks), so
In other words, printing of a certain line on the page is completed at the 1224th clock after printing started, so
The counter C included in the write control circuit 126 detects the 1224th clock after printing is started, and by applying this clock CP3 of FIG. This is to stop applying a control signal to the address counter 125 and instruct the address counter 125 to start reading.

In this way, the reading of the first row of the PBF 122-3 is started. At the same time as this reading starts, the gate 145 is controlled so as to apply the side information of the decoder 143 onto the signal line 144, so that the horizontal clock Circuit 149, conversion circuit 15
2. The character generation circuit 150 is controlled according to size information.

Therefore, the character information is sequentially transferred to the data latch 14.
1, it is recorded sequentially in medium characters. In this way, PBF122-3
When the scanning of the first scanning line of the first row of the vertical clock circuit 149 is completed, the line counters 147 and 148
A scanning line end signal is applied to each line counter to increment each line counter by one. Such a scanning line end signal is sent to each address counter 124, 125.
Since this signal is applied as a signal to clear the relative counters, the initial address of each counter is returned to its original state.

Therefore, the second information on the first line is read again from PBF122-1, and following this,
A second reading of information on the first row is performed from the PBF 122-3, and such reading is continued thereafter. When the reading of the 15th scanning line is completed in this way, by applying the scanning line completion signal,
A line completion signal from the line counter 147 is applied to the address counter 124 via the read control circuit 131, the count is increased by 138 characters corresponding to one line, and the read designation address is designated as the first character of the second line. At this time, the line counter 148 remains in the same state.

In reduced printing, the size information in the PBF 122 is configured so that there is no lowercase character size (if it exists, it is not recorded as an error), so the address register is controlled in advance so that it counts up to 138 by the line completion signal. Therefore, in the scanning of the 16th scanning line, the second
The information on the first row is read out, and the information on the first row is read out from the PBF 122-3.

In this way, when the scanning of the 990th scanning line is completed (printing of the first and third pages is completed at this point), a scanning line completion signal is sent to each line counter 14.
7, 148, and a row completion signal is applied from each counter to the address counters 124, 125, and the address counters PBF 122-2,
Specify the first address of the first line of 122-4.

In other words, the address of PBF122 is 122-1 ~
Since up to 4 are consecutively provided, it is possible to start reading the information of the next page by simply advancing the address by one line in each PBF.

In the above explanation, PBF is used in reduced printing.
One page of information is stored in each of 122-1 to 122-4,
A total of 4 pages of information was recorded on one page of recording paper, but when there was 4 pages of information on the magnetic tape to be reprinted like this, the 4 pages were read out onto the PBF. However, it is possible to perform reduced printing at the end of the program even if the number of pages is less than four. For example, if there are 3 pages left in the program, the information for these 3 pages will be
When the 276 character of the 34th record of the 3rd page reads in to indicate the end of the program, L is automatically inserted as the font size and an invalid code is inserted as the font information in the remaining PBF 122-4. .

By inserting no code like this
Since the previous data held in the PBF 122-4 is erased, three pages of reduced print and one page of blank are formed on the recording paper.

In order to insert the invalid code in this way, the write control circuit 126 is provided with an invalid code generator, and when the end of the program is detected, the write control circuit 126 applies the code signal to the distributor 108, This signal is passed through the gate to PBF122-
4.

As described above, according to this embodiment, even if four pages of information are not stored at the end of the program, reduced printing can be performed by inserting an invalid code into the remaining portion.

[Overlapping Printing] Next, overlapping printing in which two pieces of character information are read out simultaneously, a beam is modulated by the read information, and the two pieces of information are printed in an overlapping manner will be described in detail.

As mentioned before, in this example,
Since it has PBFs 121 and 122 and address counters for independent access, information can be read from both PBFs at the same time. So far, we have only described in detail the case where data to be recorded is stored in the PBF 122, but as mentioned earlier, if the function in the data read from the magnetic tape indicates that it is fixed data, write The input control circuit 126 determines this, and the character and size information of the data is stored in the PBF 121.

If you want to indicate that the data read in such a state is modulated data, this fluctuation data should be
Although this is stored in the PBF 122, the read control circuit 131 checks the function register 1 to determine whether or not this variation data instructs superimposition.
The contents of PBF 121 and PBF 122 are read out simultaneously when superimposition is not instructed, and only the fluctuation data of PBF 122 is read out, and when superimposition is instructed, the contents of PBF 121 and PBF 122 are read out simultaneously. .

For ease of explanation, PBF and PBF12
Assuming that standard density information is stored in 2-1, the address counters 123 and 124 simultaneously and synchronously start reading by reading the superimposition command in the read control circuit 131,
It operates in the same manner as described above, stores information in the shift registers 184 and 165, reads the information in these two shift registers synchronously, and forms an OR output of the read outputs using the video information generator. However, since the modulator is controlled by this OR output, the laser beam modulator is driven by the OR output of both PBFs. Although the individual reading of information from the PBF 121 and PBF 122-1 will not be explained here, the reading operation itself is exactly the same as the operation described previously, and the scanning lines and dots are simply read out at the same time in synchronization. The only difference is that such control applies control signals to gates 174 and 137 simultaneously, and that horizontal clock generators 166 and 180 receive the same clock signal from the recording clock generator. It can be executed by

FIG. 19 illustrates the above-mentioned superposition. For example, the PBF 121 stores the capital letter A only in the first character of the first row, as shown by a, and the PBF 122-1 stores the capital letter A in the first row. If we store information called B, as shown by b, with all characters up to the second character written in medium letters, and the first line is not used, the OR of both PBFs, as shown by c, can be obtained by superposition. The output, i.e. the first line is
It is possible to obtain a record in which each row consists of ABBBB...B, the other rows consist of BBBB...B, and each row consists of ABB...B.

[Reduced printing + superposition] Note that this is not the case with normal printing as in the above example,
Overlapping can also be performed in reduced printing.

However, in this case, the character size of the PBF 121 is read so that uppercase letters are converted to medium letters, and medium letters are converted to lowercase letters, the control circuit 131 controls the decoder 117, and the PBF 132
- PBF 121 is read out in synchronization with each of PBF 1 to 4, that is, PBF 122 is read out in synchronization with reading out the first scanning line of the first row of PBF 122-1.
Read the first scan line of the first row of PBF
The first scanning line of the first row of PBF 121 is read out in synchronization with the reading of the first scanning line of the first row of PBF 122-3, and then the second scanning line of the first row of PBF 122-1 is read out. The second scanning line of the first row of the PBF 121 is read out, and the OR output of the outputs of the shift registers 165 and 184 is used to modulate the modulator.

FIG. 20 illustrates overlapping printing in the case of reduced printing as described above. For example, PBF
121 has a capital letter A in the first character of the first line, PBF
Assuming that uppercase letters B, C, D, and E are stored in each of 122-1 to 122-4 except for the 7th character on the 1st line, as shown in Figure 20, the 1st letter of each page of 4
A is inserted and recorded as the first character in the line.

In the above embodiment, the flip-flop 2
The configuration is such that the OR of the reset output of the flip-flop 85 and the output of the shift register 165 or 180 is applied to the modulator 303.
If a set output is derived from 85, this set output and the shift register 165 or 1
Since it is sufficient to apply the AND output with the output of 80 to the modulator 303, the point is that it is sufficient to modulate the modulator 303 by the logical outputs of both. Further, in the above embodiment, the counter 195 or the circuit shown in FIG. 13 is used as a means for defining the left margin.
Since such a counter is required to operate as a timer, the same effect can be obtained by forming such a counter with a timer circuit and replacing it with a timer that derives a timed output after a certain period of time from the arrival of a trigger input signal. It is something that can be done.

In such a case, the counter 19 in FIG.
5 is removed, the set output of the flip-flop 191 is used as a trigger input signal, and a timer including a time constant circuit is provided such that the clock output is applied to the AND gate 195. It suffices to take the time equal to the time required to count a certain number of pulses. It goes without saying that by configuring the timer including this time constant circuit so that the time constant can be varied, the same effect as when the count value of the counter 195 is made variable can be obtained.

Further, in the above embodiment, the frequency divider 192 that steps down the 80 MHz main clock to 5 MHz is driven by the output of the beam detector 318 to detect the position of the moving object, but the present invention does not apply to such an embodiment. For example, a locked oscillator having a 5 MHz resonant circuit that resonates with the 80 MHz main clock may be activated by the output of the beam detector 318.
In addition to detecting the beam position in this manner, the position of other moving bodies such as a recording needle can also be detected in the same manner.

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, document information for multiple pages can be output in one page unit or one page at a time.
It has now become possible to provide an information output device that can generate instruction information for outputting in a predetermined plural-page unit with a smaller font size than in a page-by-page output mode.

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, when outputting page by page, the first document information constituting one page is read out, and scanning in the line direction is repeated multiple times in the direction perpendicular to the line direction. By performing the first
After outputting the document information in the first font size, the second document information constituting another page is read out, and scanning in the line direction is repeated multiple times in the direction perpendicular to the line direction to output the second When controlling readout and output in order to output document information in the first font size, and scanning and outputting in units of a predetermined number of pages, the first
document information and second document information constituting the plurality of pages to be output in the same output scanning direction are sequentially read out and outputted in the same output scanning direction to the first page and the second page. The first document information and the second document information are output by repeating outputting the document information in the direction perpendicular to the output scanning direction a plurality of times in the same output scan by the output means. It has become possible to provide an information output device that can control reading and output so as to output in a second character size smaller than the first character size.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1A, B, and C are block diagrams showing a recording apparatus to which the present invention is applied, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an outline of the recording unit in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 shows the actual configuration of the recording unit. FIG. 4 is a side view of the main part of the recording unit to show the recording system, FIG. Equivalent circuit diagram of the main part of the recording unit, Figure 7 A, B, C
is an explanatory diagram showing characters formed on a recording medium, FIGS. 8A and B are explanatory diagrams showing a recording mode of information on a magnetic tape, and FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing a recording mode formed on a recording paper. Figure 10A
is a block diagram showing the character generation circuit in FIG. 1 in more detail, FIG. 10B is an explanatory diagram showing the characters formed by the beam in more detail, and FIG. A detailed block diagram, FIG. 12 is a signal waveform diagram for explaining the operation of the recording clock generator, and FIG. 13 is a signal waveform diagram for explaining the operation of the recording clock generator.
14 is a block diagram showing another embodiment of the counter 195 in FIG. 1, FIG. 14 is a block diagram showing the address counter 124 in FIG. 1 in more detail, and FIG. 15 is a block diagram showing the modified circuit in FIG. 1 in more detail. FIG. 16 is a block diagram showing the vertical clock circuit in FIG. 1 in more detail, FIG. 17 is a block diagram showing the horizontal clock generator in FIG. 1 in more detail, and FIG. 18 is a block diagram showing the horizontal clock generator in FIG. A block diagram showing the line counter in FIG. 1 in more detail, FIGS. 19 and 20 are explanatory diagrams to explain overprinting, and FIG. 21 is a diagram showing the main parts of the recording unit to explain beam irradiation in the recording unit. Figure 22 is a top view of Figure 1 A, B, and C.
FIG. Here, 100 is an information supply unit, 101 is a control unit, 121, 122 are page buffer registers, 123, 124, 125 are address registers, 126 is a write control circuit, 131 is a read control circuit, 138, 139, 175 are Size latch, 142, 143, 177 are decoders, 14
7, 148, 181 are line counters, 150, 18
2 is a character generation circuit, 165 and 184 are shift registers, 166 and 180 are horizontal clock generators, 1
47, 148, 181 are line counters, and 18
6 is a recording clock generation circuit.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. Storage means for storing at least a part of document information for a plurality of pages; reading means for reading out the document information stored by the storage means; and the document information read by the reading means. Output means for visualizing and outputting a dot pattern based on the output method; instruction information generating means for generating information instructing whether to output a unit output mode; when outputting in units of one page based on instruction information from the instruction information generating means, one After reading the first document information constituting the page and outputting the first document information in a first character size by repeatedly scanning in the line direction a plurality of times in a direction perpendicular to the line direction, the reading means reads the second document information constituting another page, and repeats scanning in the line direction multiple times in a direction perpendicular to the line direction, thereby
In order to output the document information in a first font size, the reading means and the output means are controlled, and the predetermined plurality of pages are scanned and output based on instruction information from the instruction information generation means. , first document information forming the plurality of pages, and second document information forming the plurality of pages to be output in the same output scanning direction.
document information in the same output scanning direction to be output to the first page and the second page based on the document information read out by the reading means. By repeating outputting in the same output scan multiple times in a direction perpendicular to the output scanning direction, the first document information and the second document information are output in a second character size smaller than the first character size. An information output device comprising: a control means for controlling the reading means and the output means so as to output in a font size of .