JPH0357016A - Printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To monitor a timer by a host computer to evade abnormality by counting an output completion forecast time and determining the time to the next data reception in accordance with the counted time and the empty state of a reception buffer to average the reception speed. CONSTITUTION:When an actual time counting circuit 5 counts a preliminarily determined time, this circuit 5 outputs a count end signal to generate an interrupt to a microprocessor 6, and a processing program stored in a read-only memory 7 is operated, and data from the host computer which is held in a reception data register 3 is read out and is written in a reception buffer 8. At this time, the time preliminarily determined in accordance with the classification of data is added to the output completion forecast time of data stored in the reception buffer 8 to update this time, and this output completion forecast time is divided by the number of empty bytes of the reception buffer 8, and the obtained value is set to the actual time counting circuit 5 as the time to the next data reception. Thus, abnormality of a printer is monitored during reception to prevent unexpected abnormality.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printer device used as an output device in an information processing system, and particularly to a page printer device.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, this type of printer device has a fixed amount of reception buffer, but whether to continue or stop reception depends on whether there is no free space in the reception buffer or there is no reception buffer at all other than a very small amount of spare buffer. Generally, it was controlled by

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

When performing the above reception control on a page printer, once the reception buffer is full and reception is stopped, there is a high possibility that reception will be resumed only when printing of one page is finished; Alternatively, compared to the case of a line printer, the waiting time for the host computer is concentrated on a page-by-page basis. Some software on the host computer created for serial printers uses the reception stop time to monitor printer abnormalities, which may result in unexpected abnormalities.
Also, due to its characteristics, page printers print one or two pages.
It has an image memory larger than a page and has advanced functions that require a lot of time to create or output an image with a single command, such as a vector graph function or a page copy function that outputs multiple copies of the same content. In many cases, it is inconvenient to monitor printer abnormalities during the reception stop time.

(Means for Solving the Problems) The printer device of the present invention has a control section mainly composed of a microprocessor and a timer for counting real time.

〔Example〕

Next, the present invention will be explained using the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the present invention, which is composed of a control section 1 and a Bunonta device 2. As shown in FIG. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing details of the control section 1 shown in FIG. 1. Data from the host computer (not shown) is held and stored in the reception data register 3 by the data strobe signal, and at the same time the flip-flop 4 is set by the data strobe.
The output of flip-flop 4 is output as a busy signal to the host computer. When the real time counting circuit 5 has counted a predetermined time, it outputs a counting end signal, and an interrupt to the microprocessor 6 is generated. This interrupt causes the processing program stored in the read-only memory 7 to operate, reads data from the host computer held in the reception data register 3, and writes it to the reception buffer 8. At this time, the predicted output completion time of the data accumulated in the reception buffer is updated by adding a predetermined time according to the persimmons of the data, and the predicted output completion time is divided by the number of free bytes of the reception buffer. The value is set in the real time counting circuit 5 as the time until the next data reception.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, the present invention can average the reception speed by counting the predicted output completion time and determining the time until the next data reception in relation to the empty state of the reception buffer. This has the effect of avoiding abnormalities when monitoring timers, etc.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing details of the control section of FIG. 1. 1... Control unit, 2... Printer device, 3...
Reception data register, 4...Flip-flop, 5.
...Real time counting circuit, 6...Microprocessor, 7
... Read [2 dedicated memory, 8... Receive buffer.

Claims (1)

[Claims] It has a control unit including a microprocessor and a timer that counts real time, and the timer receives the result by dividing the predicted printing completion time of the data waiting to be printed by the number of free bytes in the reception buffer as a count value. A printer device characterized by speed control.