JPS61192573A - recording device - Google Patents

Abstract

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

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field] The present invention relates to a recording device, and more particularly to a recording device that records input character information in color based on a predetermined recording method.

[Prior Art] Devices for performing color recording have been known in the past in various devices such as inkjet printers and impact printers as peripheral devices for personal computers, word processors, and the like.

In this type of apparatus, it is customary to provide a print buffer for each possible recording color. That is, yellow (hereinafter referred to as Y), magenta (hereinafter referred to as M
), cyan (hereinafter referred to as C), black (hereinafter referred to as B
) has four print buffers, Y, M, C, and B, corresponding to each color.
Recording data was transferred to a print buffer corresponding to the color to be recorded before recording. This method is useful when specifying a color for each dot, but it When recording, it is rare to record one character in multiple colors, and the minimum unit of color designation is often one character. In the case of character recording, it is sufficient to have color information for one or two colors for each character, so providing a print buffer as described above has the drawback of requiring more memory space than necessary.

[Objective] *The invention was made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the invention is to provide a recording device that can record characters in color with a low degree of redundancy.

[Structure of the Invention] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a recording device for color recording input character information based on a predetermined recording method, including means for storing information regarding the shape of a character to be recorded. , a configuration is adopted in which means for storing information regarding the color of the character to be recorded is provided, and the recording section is controlled based on the information in both storage means.

[Example] The present invention will be described in detail below based on an example shown in one drawing.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a recording device according to the invention. What is indicated by the symbol l in FIG. 1 is an MPU, which is constituted by a known microcomputer element. MPU1
The recording data is received from a host device such as a computer, word processor, etc. via a suitable serial or parallel interface. The MPU 1 includes a recording pad 6 configured by a predetermined method such as inkjet or dot matrix, and a recording medium. Perform the action.

The character data to be recorded is sent from the host side to ASC″L1・J.
It is transferred using a code such as an IS code. Since characters are recorded as dots, the dot configuration of the character is stored in the character generator 2 in correspondence with the character code, and the MPUI reads out the dot configuration of the character corresponding to the transferred character code from the character generator 2. Based on this, the recording head 6 and drive means 7 are controlled.

The buffer memory 3.4 is composed of RAM elements and the like.

The recording buffer 3 records dot-structured data read from the character generator 2 in accordance with the character code transferred from the host computer, and the color buffer 4 records the dot-based characters developed in the recording I/F 3. The power color information is stored in correspondence.

The memory 5 is composed of the same memory elements as the buffer 7 memory 3.4, and stores the recording colors of characters to be recorded in advance, and writes color data to the color buffer 4 of the MPU 1 while referring to this memory 5. It will be done. The host device transfers the color information of the characters in advance before transferring the characters. This color information does not need to be sent for each character individually, and the color information is transferred only when the color changes. Just leave it as .

FIG. 2 schematically shows the mechanical configuration of the device shown in FIG. 1. Here, a case is shown in which the recording head 6 is constituted by an inkjet head. The recording head 6 has four color nozzles: cyan (hereinafter C), magenta (hereinafter referred to as M), yellow (hereinafter referred to as Y), and black (hereinafter referred to as B). Dots of the relevant color are recorded by ejecting ink.

The recording scan on the recording medium is performed by the recording head 6 in the direction of arrow P.
This is performed by parallel movement (main scanning) with respect to the platen 8 and movement of the recording medium in the direction of arrow Q by rotationally driving the platen 8. Therefore, the driving means 7 controls the driving of the recording disk 6 and platen 8.

FIG. 3 shows the storage status of character data and its color data in the buffer memory 3.4. Here, the vertical direction in FIG. 3 shows the structure of one byte of one cell of the memory.

In this embodiment, assuming that one character is composed of a dot matrix of 8 vertical by 7 horizontal, one character occupies 7 bytes on the recording buffer 3.

In the recording buffer 3, dots to be recorded are represented by "1", and dots not to be recorded are represented by "0". FIG. 3 shows how the dot pattern of the character rAJ is stored in the recording buffer 3. The color data for this character is stored in color buffer 4, with 4 characters each for the character color and background color.
It is stored separately for each bit. The 4 bits on the MSB side correspond to the font color, respectively, and are set to 4 colors: C, M, B, and Y.
Also, the 4 bits on the LSB side correspond to the background, and similarly C and M
, B, and Y. Here "1"
indicates "record", so the character rAJ of the recording buffer 3 is recorded in black, and the 0 character data and color data are easily arranged by shifting the recording start addresses of the recording buffer 3 and color buffer 4 by a predetermined offset amount. can be made to correspond to

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be discussed in detail with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 4 and 5. 4 and 5 show the control procedure of the MPUI shown in FIG. 1.

First, prior to the start of recording, current color data is stored in advance in the memory 5 when the power of the recording apparatus is turned on or when a control code is transferred from the host device.

FIG. 4 shows the procedure for developing character dot data and color data into the buffer memory 3.4.

When recording data is received from the host device in step S1 of FIG. 4, the code is changed to C in step S2.
Recording can be started by determining whether it is a recording start command such as R (carriage return) or LF (line feed), or by referring to buffer memories 3 and 4 and checking whether they are full. Determine whether the state is

If recording is to be started, the recording routine is entered in step SIO; otherwise, in step S3,
The starting address of the dot data storage area of the character generator 2 corresponding to the character code transferred from the host is determined. This is done by adding a predetermined offset amount to the character code.

Subsequently, in step S4, the dot data of the characters transferred in order from the head address determined in the recording buffer 3 is read out, and in step S5, one byte of the data is written as shown in FIG.

Next, in step S6, the current color data is read from the memory 5, and in step S7, it is stored in the color buffer 4 as shown in Figure S3.

After 1 byte of data in the vertical direction of the character has been read, the read address of the character generator 2 is incremented by 1 in step S8, and the process moves to step S9.

In step S9, it is determined whether all 7-byte data for one character has been transferred. If the transfer has not been completed, the process returns to step S4 and the above operation is repeated; if the transfer has been completed, the process returns to step S1 to wait for the host to transfer the next character.

The dot configuration of the characters and the colors of the characters are sequentially stored in the buffer memory 3.4 as described below.

When the start of recording is determined in step S2, step 510
Move to.

FIG. 5 shows the recording routine of step 510 in FIG.

In step Sll of FIG. 5, MPU 1 clears the data boat to be sent to the recording head, and then sets a pointer as shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 2, in this embodiment, C, M, Y,
This is because if there are dots that can be recorded simultaneously at one position of the head because the nozzles B are arranged, those dots can be recorded.

The pointer is secured in a predetermined area in the memory 5,
This content is changed in accordance with the movement of the head position as described later.

Therefore, the offset of each pointer corresponds to the actual recording nozzle interval of the RAD 6 converted into a bit interval. Furthermore, the shaded area in FIG. 6 indicates a dummy data area that is not actually related.

Next, in steps S12 to S15, the MPUI is set to B.
In other words, align the black data. First, the recording pad 6 moves in the direction of arrow r to record the MSHI column.
In step 512, the MPU 1 examines the data in the MSH indicated by the pointer BP. If the data is rlJ, the process moves to step 513, and if the data is rQJ, the process moves to step S14.

When the process advances to step 513, the data is "1", so the upper 4 bits of the data in the corresponding color buffer 4 are
In other words, the B bit (bit 4) in the character color information
Find out. At this time, if bit 4 is set to "1", it means that black is specified as the color of one character, so
Proceeding to step 315, the B bit of the data to be transferred to the RAD 6 for recording is set to rlJ.

On the other hand, if bit 4 is rQJ in step 513, the color to be recorded is not B even if character data is set, so the B bit of the recording data is left as "0".

On the other hand, when the process moves to step S14, the character data is "0", so the lower 4 bits of the corresponding color buffer 4, that is, the B bit (bit O
). At this time, if rlJ is set in bit O, B is designated as the background color, so the process advances to step S15 and the B bit of the recording data is set to "1".

On the other hand, in step 514, if bit 0 is "O", the B bit of the data sent to the recording head 6 is left as rQJ.

Thereafter, the same process was repeated for each color of Y, M, and C. Then, in step 518, the recording head 6 was moved to a predetermined position by the driving means 7, and in step 519, the recording head 6 was formed into a boat as described above. The recording data is transferred and the RAD 6 is driven to perform recording.

Further, in step 320, the MPUI increments the values of four pointers BP, YP, MP, CP;
In step S21, it is checked whether recording of 1 line has been completed.

If the storage of one line has not yet been completed, the process returns to step 311 and repeats the above operation. If it has been completed, the process moves to step S22, where the platen 8 is moved via the drive means 7, the recording medium is moved vertically by one dot, and the second dot row from the top is formed by the same process as above. form.

At this time, since the recording head 6 also performs the recording operation in the S direction in FIG. Since the recording direction is reversed, incrementing is replaced by decrementing.

Subsequently, in step 523, the end of one line is determined in the same manner as in step 521, and if it has not ended, the process returns to step 512 to repeat the above operation, and if it has ended, the recording process is stopped.

According to the configuration of 0 or more that can record characters in color as described above, the data of the dot configuration of characters and the color data are stored in separate storage means, so that it is possible to record characters in three colors as in the past. Since there is no need to expand the decomposed dot data on memory, the required memory capacity can be significantly reduced.

Therefore, it is possible to reduce the number of parts and reduce costs, and the device can be made smaller and lighter.

In the above embodiment, C1M, B,
Although 4 bits of Y and B are used, B, ie, black data, can be obtained from the three data of C, M, and Y. That is, if the three colors C, M, and Y are set to "1", the color designation becomes B due to subtractive color mixing.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the inkjet nozzles were arranged in the main scanning direction, one for each color, but it is also possible to provide multiple nozzles for each color, or arrange the nozzles for each color in the sub-scanning direction. Good too. Further, the technology of the present invention is not limited to the inkjet printer of the above embodiment, but can be applied to various recording apparatuses such as wire dot printers and unihammer printers.

Further, in the above embodiment, color recording of "characters" has been described, but if the character is associated with a predetermined code such as a symbol or figure, color recording can be performed by the method described below.

Bone [Effect] As is clear from the following explanation, according to the present invention, in a recording device that colors input character information based on a predetermined recording method, the shape of the character to be recorded is The system has a means for storing information regarding the color of the character to be recorded and a means for storing information regarding the color of the character to be recorded, and the recording section is controlled based on the information in the storage means. There is no need to develop each on the storage means, and the storage capacity of the storage means can be significantly reduced, making it possible to reduce the cost, size, and weight of the device.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a recording device adopting the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of the mechanical configuration of the device in FIG. 1, and FIG. An explanatory diagram showing the data storage situation, Figures 4 and 5 are the MPU of Figure 1.
FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing the configuration of a data pointer used in the recording means. l...MPU 2...Character generator 3.4...Record/Henfa 5...Memory 6...Recording head 7...
・Driving means 8...Platen patent application 1 person Canon Co., Ltd. - Agent Patent attorney Takashi Kato
1.. 1. -1. -6・J

Claims (1)

[Claims] A recording device for color recording input character information based on a predetermined recording method is provided with means for storing information regarding the shape of the character to be recorded and means for storing information regarding the color of the character to be recorded, and both A recording device characterized in that a recording section is controlled based on information in a storage means.