JPH07200193A - High speed printer output system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Purpose] The galley data (data for checking the composition of the page) sent from the host computer on the newspaper page creation system is continuously and continuously output to the printer. [Structure] A plurality of image buffer devices 12 to 13 are connected to a host computer 11 to sequentially receive data.
One image selection device 15 for monitoring whether or not the data is stored in each image buffer device is connected, and the data is sequentially output from the stored image buffer device to the printer. At this time, the timing of sending to the printer is the maximum processing speed of the printer. [Effect] Usually, when data is continuously output from the host on one channel, it takes time to expand each data in the host, and there is a drawback that there is a gap between each data transfer. However, according to the present invention. For example, processing can be performed at the maximum processing speed of the printer.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer output system for recording confirmation in a system for editing article image data of newspapers, magazines and the like by a host computer, and more particularly to high speed image data output to a PPC plain paper printer. Processing system for transferring data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In an editing system for newspapers, magazines, etc., when checking the edited result as an image,
A PPC plain paper printer is directly connected to the host computer for recording and output.

Since the host computer generally takes a development time when outputting image data, the image data may not be continuously transmitted when viewed from each channel.

In addition, the PPC plain paper printer requires a warming-up time when the image data from the host computer is cut off (in units of one page) and the image data is sent again. Had an influence. In order to solve this, at present, the number of output channels from the host computer is increased and the PPC plain paper printer is additionally installed to secure the required output time.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional method, it is necessary to install a plurality of printers according to the peak usage of the PPC plain paper printer, which leads to an increase in price and an increase in floor occupancy. .

Further, the operating rate of this printer is also reduced, and the PP
C It has a drawback that it cannot be used efficiently with the maximum processing capacity of a plain paper printer.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional circumstances, and therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a novel high-speed printer output system capable of solving the above-mentioned drawbacks inherent in the prior art. To provide.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, a high speed printer output system according to the present invention comprises a plurality of image buffer devices for storing image data sent from a host computer and the plurality of images. An image selection device that confirms the image data storage state of the buffer device and the ready states of a plurality of printers and selects an image data transfer path, and a PPC plain paper printer that records the image data are configured.

In the image buffer device, P
It is equipped with control and memory capacity that can perform resend processing when a PC plain paper printer jams.

Further, in the image selection device, PP
In order to maintain the maximum processing capacity of the C plain paper printer,
It has control to output image data to this printer without interruption.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. 2 is a block configuration diagram showing a specific example of the image buffer device shown in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a block configuration diagram showing a specific example of the image selection device shown in FIG. An example of the image data transfer procedure is shown in FIG.

For convenience of explanation, this embodiment shows a system using three image buffer devices and two PPC plain paper printers. Of course, the host computer,
Even if the number of units is changed according to the processing capacity of the PPC plain paper printer, the same processing can be performed.

In FIG. 2, image buffer devices 12-1
A buffer memory 21 stores image data output from the host computer 11, an input interface section 22 for inputting image data, and image data input via the input interface section 22 is stored in the buffer memory 21. A memory control unit 23 that controls and outputs the image data to the image selection device 15, an output interface unit 24 that outputs the image data to the image selection device 15, and a CPU control unit 25 that controls each unit are provided. is doing.

Further, in FIG. 3, the image selection device 15
Is an input interface unit 31 for inputting image data from the image buffer devices 12 to 14 and an output interface unit 33 for outputting the image data to the printers 16 and 17.
A data selection control unit 32 that controls switching so that the image data transferred via the input interface unit 31 can be selected and transferred to the output interface unit 33, and a CPU control unit 34 that controls each unit. ing.

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, when the image data development in the host computer 11 is completed, the image data is sequentially transferred to the image buffer device having the empty buffer memory 21. Each of the image buffer devices 12, 13, and 14 notifies the image selection device 15 of the storage completion flag when receiving one page of data in the buffer memory 21. In the image selection device 15,
If the storage completion flags of the image buffer devices 12, 13 and 14 are cyclically confirmed and if the storage flag is "ON", a start signal is given to the PPC plain paper printer 16 or 17 to transfer the image data. Start.

Next, the continuous recording operation for the PPC plain paper printers 16 and 17 will be described with reference to FIG. In the figure, each of the image buffer devices 12, 13, and 14 completes the reception of the image data from the host computer 11, and sets the storage completion flag for the image selection device 15 to “ON”.

First, the image selection device 15 confirms the storage completion flag "ON" (), and checks the PPC plain paper printer 16
A start signal is given to and warming up.
After the warming up is completed, the image data of is started to be output to the PPC plain paper printer 16. After that, in order to improve the throughput, the storage completion flag “ON” () is confirmed during the transfer of the image data, and after the image data transfer is completed, the image data is continuously output to the same PPC plain paper printer 16. Similarly, for each image data of, when the transfer of the previously received image data is completed,
Continue to transfer.

By this operation, the PPC plain paper printer 16
It is possible to continuously supply different image data.

The storage completion flag "ON" ()-
When the image data from the host computer 11 is interrupted for a while and the image data is received again like the storage completion flag “ON” (), it is necessary to restart the PPC plain paper printer. is there. here,
In order to use this printer evenly, the startup destination is P
The PC plain paper printer 17 is used. After that, from the image buffer devices 12, 13, and 14, the storage completion flag “O” is output.
Image data is continuously transferred unless the N "signal is interrupted.

The image buffer devices 12, 13, 14 are shown in FIG.
An example of the configuration will be shown and its operation will be described.

First, a method of using the buffer memory 21 will be described.

The buffer memory 21 is divided into several areas with a size larger than the recording size. The number of areas is set to the maximum value that must be retransmitted when the jam occurs in the PPC plain paper printer 16 or 17 / the number of image selection devices + 1.

As a reason for securing the area of (maximum value) / (number of image selection devices), in the case of the PPC plain paper printers 16 and 17 used for editing confirmation, etc., when continuously operated, depending on the place where the jam occurs, This is because the paper recorded in the past may become a jam, and it is necessary to retain the past data.

The area of +1 is secured by receiving image data from the host computer 11 and storing it.
This is because the image is then output to the image selection device 15.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of how to use the buffer memory. In FIG. 5, each area has a circle.
A number with a number means that the image data of that number is stored.

Here, a case where the buffer memory 21 is divided into four areas as shown in FIG. 5 will be described.

When the image data is received from the host computer 11, it is stored from the first area. When the reception of all the image data of one page is completed, the image selection device 15
On the other hand, the storage completion flag is set to "ON", and if a request signal of transfer preparation completion is received as a response, the image data is transferred (see FIG. 5 (1)). When the main transfer is completed, the image data received from the host computer 11 is stored in the second area. As for the subsequent operation, the operation described in FIG. 5 (1) is repeated to store the image data in each area (see FIGS. 5 (2) to 5 (4)). After the image data is stored in all areas and the transfer to the image selection device 15 is completed, the area where the oldest image data is stored is sequentially overwritten, and the next image data sent from the host computer 11 is stored ( See FIGS. 5 (5) to 5 (6). In this way, each area is sequentially used in a ring shape. In the case of this example, image data for the past three images is always stored.

Here, as shown in FIG. 5 (6), while the image data is being transferred to the image selecting device 15, a jam occurs in the PPC plain paper printer of the transfer destination, and the past 3 including the image data currently being transferred. If there is a request to retransmit the number of sheets, FIG.
As shown in (7) to (9), each of the data is sequentially retransmitted. After that, as described above, the area in which the old image data is stored is sequentially overwritten and the next image data is stored (see (10) to (12) in FIG. 5).

Next, referring to FIG. 2, the image buffer device 1
The operation in 2, 13, and 14 will be described.

When the CPU control unit 25 confirms that the previously received image data has been output to the image selection device 15, the input interface unit 2 is connected from the terminal 201.
2, the image data is received from the host computer 11 through the buffer computer 21, and the buffer memory 21
To store. When the storage of one page is completed, CP
The U control unit 25 turns on the storage completion flag and notifies the image selection device 15. After that, a request signal for completion of transfer preparation is received from the image selection device 15, and the image data is output from the terminal 202 to the image selection device 15 via the output interface unit 24.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the configuration of the image selection device 15, and its operation will be described.

The input interface section 31 has terminals 301, 302 and 303 for receiving image data and control signals from the image buffer devices 12, 13 and 14, respectively.
have. The CPU control unit 34 monitors the storage completion flag from each input terminal and confirms the input terminal that is "ON". After confirming the input terminal, a start signal is given to one of the PPC plain paper printers 16 and 17 connected to the terminals 304 and 305 of the output interface section 33, and at the same time, the storage completion flag is set in the data selection control section 32. Switching is performed so that the input terminal of the input interface 31 which is "ON" and the output terminal of the output interface 33 to which the activation signal is applied can transfer the image data. After receiving the warm-up completion signal, the transfer preparation completion request signal is returned to the image buffer device whose storage completion flag is "ON". afterwards,
The image data is transferred.

The output destination PPC plain paper printer 16
In the case where the continuous reception is already performed and the warming-up has been performed, or 17 indicates that the storage completion flag is "ON", the activation signal is not given to the PPC plain paper printer which is continuously receiving. Instead, the PPC indicates that the image data currently being transferred has been completed and the next image data can be received.
When notified by the plain paper printer, the transfer ready request signal is immediately returned to the image buffer device to receive the image data.

[0035]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Due to the image data expansion time occurring in the host computer, there is a gap in the transfer interval of each image data, by installing multiple image buffer devices,
The image data can be transferred to the PPC plain paper printer without interruption, and the forming up time when the transfer interval of the image data, which is a limitation of the PPC plain paper printer, is not a problem. The effect that the printer can be operated with the maximum processing capacity is obtained.

Further, this effect can reduce the number of PPC plain paper printers, which is advantageous in terms of price.
The effect of reducing the floor occupancy rate can also be obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block configuration diagram showing a specific example of the image buffer device shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a block configuration diagram showing a specific example of the image selection device shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a procedure for transferring image data.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of how to use a buffer memory.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 ... Host computer 12, 13, 14 ... Image buffer device 15 ... Image selection device 16, 17 ... PPC plain paper printer 21 ... Buffer memory 22 ... Input interface unit 23 ... Memory control unit 24 ... Output interface unit 25 ... CPU control unit 31 ... Input interface unit 32 ... Data selection control unit 33 ... Output interface unit 34 ... CPU control unit 201 ... Input terminal from host computer 202 ... Output terminal to image selection device 301, 302, 303 ... Input from image buffer device Terminals 304, 305 ... Output terminals for PPC plain paper printer

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of image buffer devices for storing image data sent from a host computer, image data storage states of the plurality of image buffer devices, and ready states of a plurality of printers are respectively confirmed to transfer image data. A high-speed printer output system comprising an image selection device for selecting a path and a PPC plain paper printer for recording the image data. 2. The PPC in the image buffer device
2. The high-speed printer output system according to claim 1, further comprising a control capable of performing resend processing when the plain paper printer is jammed and a memory capacity. 3. The image selecting apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a control for outputting image data to the printer without interruption so that the maximum processing capacity of the PPC plain paper printer can be maintained. High-speed printer output system. 4. The image buffer device stores a buffer memory for storing image data output from the host computer, an input interface unit for inputting the image data, and image data input via the input interface unit. A memory control unit for controlling storage in the buffer memory and controlling output of the image data to the image selection device, an output interface unit for outputting the image data to the image selection device, and a CPU control unit for controlling each unit. The high speed printer output system of claim 1, further comprising: 5. The image selecting apparatus is transferred via an input interface section for inputting image data from the image buffer apparatus, an output interface section for outputting image data to the printer, and the input interface section. The high-speed printer output according to claim 1, further comprising a data selection control unit that controls switching so that image data can be selected and transferred to the output interface unit, and a CPU control unit that controls each unit. system. 6. The buffer memory is divided into a plurality of areas having the largest recording size, and the number of the areas must be retransmitted when a jam occurs in the PPC plain paper printer / image. 3. The high-speed printer output system according to claim 2, further comprising: the number of selection devices + 1. 7. Each of the image buffer devices notifies the image selection device of a storage completion flag when reception of one page of data into the buffer memory is completed, and the image selection device cyclically connects each of the image buffer devices. 5. The method according to claim 4, further comprising the step of sending a start signal to the PPC plain paper printer to start transfer of image data if the storage completion flag of the image buffer device is confirmed to be "ON". The described high speed printer output system.