JPS6367167A - Pi character processing of printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To continuously perform highly efficient printing operation without being interrupted by the load of a pi character pattern, by storing a writing command in a temporary buffer to store the load command of the page of the writing command, that is, the pi character pattern in a page buffer along with the writing command. CONSTITUTION:A temporary buffer 3 temporarily stores the writing command sent from a channel interface 11 as the page data of one page through a buffer 1 and a command buffer 2. A page buffer 4 accumulates a load command, that is, a pi character pattern and subsequently accumulates the writing command of the same page as page data from the temporary buffer 3. At the point of time when all of the data of one page stored in the temporary buffer 3 and the load command of the same page are stored in the page buffer 4, the data of the temporary buffer 3 are stored after the load commands. The stored data are successively read by a microprocessor 6 and the load commands are transferred into the pi character area of a font memory 8, and the writing commands are transferred to a line buffer 5. Continuously, a character pattern is sent to the interface 10 of a printer part through a line bit buffer 9 by a printing control part 7.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printer's external character processing method.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a conventional printer external character processing method disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 54-94833.
In the figure, 11 is a channel interface connected to the channel, 1 is a buffer that receives data from this channel interface 11, 2 is a command buffer that stores data sent from buffer 1, and is a forms control buffer. , a write command buffer, and a load command buffer.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a temporary buffer for storing the external character code and external character pattern of the load command of the command buffer 2. This buffer has two stages and can store data for two pages. 4 is a page buffer that stores the write command of command buffer 2 as character code page data;
Reference numeral 5 denotes a line buffer for receiving character codes line by line from the page buffer 4, which has two stages and is alternately switched between the side receiving data from the page buffer 4 and the side sending data to the printer control unit 7. 6 (d: A microprocessor that controls the entire system. 7 is a print control unit that receives character codes from the line buffer 5 and accesses the font memory 8 using the character codes as address data. 8 stores character patterns. in font memory,
Also includes the area for custom character patterns. Reference numeral 9 denotes a line bit buffer for converting the character pattern data from the font memory 8 into serial bit data and transferring it to the printer unit. 10 is an interface line for sending data from the line pit buffer 9 to the printer section.

Next, the operation will be explained. First, a command sent from the channel interface 11 is stored in the command buffer 2 via the buffer 1. Among the commands, the data in the forms control buffer determines the format of the page to be printed. The successively sent write commands are sequentially stored in the page buffer 4 as character codes, and when one page's worth of data is completed, they are transferred to the line buffer 5 as line-by-line data. Even while the page buffer 4 is sending data to the line buffer 5, it receives data for the next page via the command buffer 2. The line buffer 5 uses the print control unit 7 to read out a character pattern from the data sent from the page buffer 4 (ie, character code) as address data in the font memory 8 . The read character pattern is converted into serial bit data by the line pit buffer 9 and transferred as print data via the interface 10 to the printer section. Next, the external character processing of the @ command sent from the channel interface 11 will be explained. If there is a load command among the commands sent from the channel interface 11, the character code and character pattern of the load command are temporarily stored in the buffer 3 (-). Immediately after printing one page of data is completed, the external character pattern stored in the temporary puffer 3 is stored in the font memory 8 at the page update time.Then, the character code of the page that is the target of the load command is If the character code of a custom character pattern is included when reading from the buffer 4, the custom character pattern is already stored in the font memory 8, so printing can be performed continuously without interrupting the printing operation to load the custom character pattern. This enabled printing operations that were

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

Since the custom character processing method of conventional printers is configured as described above, the page data of the load command can only be stored in the page buffer up to the next page of the print page or the temporary buffer for the custom character pattern. In addition, if external characters are continuously loaded and data input from the host is intermittent, the write command input to the page buffer may not be able to catch up with the print output temporarily, causing the printing operation to be interrupted. In some cases, there was a problem that input from the host was interrupted.

This invention was made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it makes it possible to store multiple pages of custom character pattern load commands, and also allows data input from the host to be processed regardless of whether custom characters are loaded or not. An object of the present invention is to provide an external character processing method for a printer that enables continuous printing operation even if the printing operation is intermittent.

[Means for solving problems]

The printer's custom character processing method according to the present invention stores the write command in a temporary buffer, and stores the page load command of the write command, i.e., the custom character pattern, in the page buffer together with the write command. This allows page data to be stored in a page buffer.

[Effect]

In the present invention, the temporary buffer stores character codes of write commands for one page, and the stored contents are input into the page buffer following the character pattern input with the load command.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to two figures.

1 is a block diagram of a control section of a dot printer in which the position of the temporary puff 7 has been changed. In FIG.

Next, the operation will be explained. First, a temporary buffer 3 temporarily stores a write command sent from the channel interface 11 via the command buffer 2 as page data for one page. This temporary buffer has two stages and can store page data for two pages. 4 is a page buffer that stores load commands sent from the channel interface 11, that is, external character patterns, via the command buffer 2, and then stores write commands for the same page as the load commands from the temporary buffer 3. Accumulate as data.

In a write command to the printer, a character code for one line is sent via the channel interface 11. This is input to the temporary puffer 3 via buffer 1 and command buffer 2.

Write commands are sent to channel interface 11 one after another.
Therefore, the data for one page is stored in the temporary buffer 3. Also, a load command 4M is sent to the command buffer 2, but in the case of a load command, it is directly stored in the page buffer 4. temporary buffer 3
When the data for 91 pages and the load command for the same page are all stored in the page buffer, the data in the temporary buffer is stored after the load command in the page buffer. The page buffer 4 can always store data for a plurality of pages.

The data accumulated in the page buffer 4 is sequentially decoded by the microprocessor 6, and if it is a load command, a custom character code and a custom character pattern are stored in the custom character area of the font memory 8, and if it is a write command, a line The data is transferred to buffer 5 as page data. Subsequently, the print control section 7 uses the page data in the line buffer 5 as font memory 80 address data and sends out the character pattern via the line pit buffer 9 to the interface 10 of the printer section. These operations are controlled by the microprocessor 6.

FIG. 2 is a time chart for explaining the above-mentioned operation. In the figure, W and L indicate a write command and a load command. X is the data transmission time for one page including loading of the custom character pattern, and according to the present invention C2, data can be transmitted continuously, and the transmission time is variable length. Y
is the paper feeding time for one page (printing time for one page), Z
indicates the page update time.

In this time chart, channel interface 1
1 from the (n+1)th page to the (n+3)th page, among which the (n+1)th/< -th and (nth
+2) It is assumed that the page contains a load command. Two temporary buffers 3 are used by switching between them on a page-by-page basis.

The load command is stored in the page buffer 4 when the load command arrives, and the write command is transferred from the temporary puffer 3 to the page buffer 4 when all the load commands in the page are stored in the page buffer 4. If there is no load command in a page, the page buffer 4 write command is transferred from the temporary buffer 3 when all commands for the page have been sent from the channel.

Note that in the above embodiment (Figure 2), the load command is placed at the end of the page, but it can be placed at any position on the page, and multiple commands can be specified.This also applies to write commands. When the average data sending time for X over multiple pages is longer than the paper feeding time for Y, or when the number of load commands in one page is large, Z
If processing cannot be completed within the page update time, in such a case, the printing operation must be interrupted. However, as long as a large number of external characters do not continue to be loaded for each page, continuous printing is possible. In addition, although the readout time of the font memory 8 is set constant in FIG. 2, the readout time changes depending on the amount of print data in the page, and the page update time 2 also changes from immediately after the readout of the font memory 8 to the next page. This is until just before the start of reading from the font memory 8.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, C2. According to the present invention, by temporarily storing the write command in the buffer, the page load command (external character pattern) of the write command is stored in the page buffer together with the write command, so that the external character pattern Continuous high-efficiency printing operation is possible without being interrupted by loading. In addition, commands from the channel interface are stored for multiple pages across the entire page buffer, allowing efficient
This has the effect of being able to interface with channels.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a custom character processing method of a printer showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a time chart showing the operation of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a conventional printer custom character processing method. be. In the figure, 1 is a buffer, 2 is a command buffer, and 3 is a buffer.
is a temporary buffer, 4 is a page buffer, and 8 is a font memory. tJ 1-y1 Shizuku Same-tachi 511 visit-goshi 1 detail equivalent Ikugebeishi J. Patent applicant: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation Procedural amendment (voluntary)

Claims (1)

[Claims] a page buffer that receives and stores character codes for one to several pages as a write command; a font memory that reads a character pattern according to the character code of the page buffer, prints the data of the page, and outputs it as data; In a printer's custom character processing method in which a custom character pattern is loaded into the font memory by a load command when a character code other than the character pattern stored in the font memory is specified by a write command, the write command Temporarily store the character code in a temporary buffer, store the external character pattern of the page targeted by the write command in the page buffer first,
A non-character processing method for a printer, characterized in that the write command stored in a temporary buffer is then stored in a page buffer.