JP2002178590A - Page end processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] Conventionally, it is necessary to manage the number of print lines in a higher-level device or retransmit a message from a higher-level device when a page end is detected. Had become. A printing device connected to a higher-level device and operated by a control code detects a page end, which is a printing lower limit area of a sheet, and automatically sets the page end without an instruction from the higher-level device. By discharging the paper and sucking the next paper, the printing operation can be continued without requiring the host device to manage the number of printing lines and retransmit the print instruction message that could not be printed. According to the present invention, there is provided a page end processing task which has two control buffers between tasks and performs a discharge / sheet suction process at the time of a page end by simulating a message from a higher-level device.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a page end processing system for a printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a printer. Connected to the host device 1 through the line interface 2,
According to the program stored in the F-EPROM unit 3, the CP
The U4 and the RAM 5 are combined to control the paper transport unit 6 and the printing unit 7 and perform printing according to an instruction from the host device 1.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a relationship between a printing unit and paper conveyance in a printer.

The inserted paper is transported below the print head (23) by a transport path roller driven by a servo motor (25) with encoding, and printing is performed by lifting the platen (24) in the direction of the print head. . When a sheet is inserted in this printer, the upper end detection sensor (22) detects the upper end of the sheet, saves the encode output counter value of the conveyance motor at this time to the RAM, and further detects the upper end of the sheet by the lower end detection sensor (21). The lower end is detected, and the encode counter value is saved as in the case of the upper end detection. At the end of the transport operation, the sheet length is created using the retracted counter value, and the distance from the upper end of the sheet to the page end is calculated.

FIG. 3 illustrates the relationship between the sheet length and the page end.

From the measured paper length A (31), a predetermined distance B from the lower end of the paper to the page end.
By subtracting (32), the distance C (33) from the top edge of the sheet to the page end is obtained and compared with the line feed position during the line feed operation. It detects whether the line feed position exceeds the page end position for each print line feed, and reports the page end to the host device when a line feed operation beyond the page end position is instructed.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the flow of a control program.

In a message analysis task (41), an operation instruction from the host device is analyzed, control information is stored in the control buffer 1 (46), and an operation instruction is issued to the hardware control task (42). The hardware control task (42) extracts control information from the control buffer 1 (46), creates control information for the control task corresponding to the operation instruction according to a predetermined control code, and stores it in the control buffer 2 (47). I do. The contents of the control buffer 2 (47) are monitored by the paper transport control task (43) and the print control task (44), respectively, and when it is determined that the control instruction is directed to the own task, the control information is taken out and the operation instructed is executed. Let it.

At this time, when a line feed print is instructed and a page end is detected by the paper transport control task (43), each task reports an error to the message analysis task (41) as an error, and further uses the line interface. Was reported to the host device.

FIG. 5 is a timing chart of message processing between the host device and the printer.

When a print line feed instruction is given to the printer for three lines at a time by message 1 (51), when a page end is detected at the end of print line feed instruction 2 (502), print line feed instruction 3 (503) , The page end abnormality report (504) is transmitted to the host device.

On the other hand, the host device issues a medium ejection instruction (5).
05) or send a reset instruction to the printer,
After ejecting the media that has reached the page end, print line feed instruction 3
(507) was resent and the subsequent processing was performed on the newly inserted paper.

[0013]

In the conventional paper end processing of the printer, since the paper end is detected as abnormal at the time of detecting the paper end, the message retransmission processing after instructing the medium ejection from the upper apparatus or the one by the upper apparatus is performed. It was necessary to grasp the number of printable lines for the page and manage the number of lines to be printed, recognize the paper end by the host device, and issue an instruction to eject the medium.

In either of these methods, a special process relating to the paper end is required in the higher-level device. If the number of print lines is not managed in the higher-level device, the processing time becomes long because retransmission of the message occurs. I was

An object of the present invention is to provide a paper end process in which a printer does not require special processing, and a printer can automatically perform a process of ejecting a medium and suspending / restarting a message instruction operation.

[0016]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the length of the inserted paper is measured by a printer, the page end position is calculated, and the printing position managed by the printer (the printing position from the upper end of the paper) To detect the page end. At this time, in order to freeze task operation instructions such as message instruction analysis and hardware control task instructions from the host device, each task interface is duplicated and switched when a page end is detected. By using the switched interface to send a paper ejection instruction to the hardware control, the paper is ejected, the paper is inserted, the interface is returned again, and the subsequent message analysis is resumed. Then, after the paper is automatically discharged and the next medium is inserted, the subsequent print instruction operation is performed.

[0017]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A page end control according to one embodiment of the present invention will be described below.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a passbook printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The host device 81 and the line interface 82
The CPU 84 and the RAM 85 are combined to control the paper transport unit 86, the printing unit 87, and the magnetic recording unit 88 by a program stored in the F-EPROM unit 83, and perform printing and magnetic recording according to an instruction from the host device 81. It is a device that performs.

FIG. 6 illustrates the flow of a control task for page end control according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the line processing task (61), a message from the host device is received and stored in the reception buffer (601). The message analysis processing task (62) fetches the message from the reception buffer (601), analyzes the operation instruction from the higher-level device, and determines “print line feed operation” from a predetermined control code. Based on this, print instruction control information (0 is printed as one character) and line feed instruction information
(1 line feed) is created and stored in the control buffer 1A (602).

The hardware control task (63) is the control buffer 1
A (602), a print instruction and a line feed instruction are extracted, control information is created for the print control task (64) in response to the print instruction, and control information for the paper transport control task (65) is sent in response to the line feed instruction. The control information is created and stored in the control buffer 2A (604) in the order of operation. Each task of the print control (64) and the paper transport control (65) performs printing of a designated content and a line feed. At this time, if the page end is detected by the line feed operation, the page end detection flag is set immediately.

When a print instruction is given to the print control task after this flag is set, the print control task (64) sets the control buffer switching flag without performing the print operation, and sets the control buffer 1A (602). ) → Control buffer 1B
(603), control buffer 2A (604) → control buffer 2
B (605), and the hard control task is performed using the switched control buffer 2B (605).
Report page end error to (63). The hardware control task (63) further stores the page end information and the number of printed lines in the control buffer 1B (603). This control buffer 2
Page end processing task that constantly monitors B (603)
When (66) recognizes the page end, the control buffer 1
B (603), using the control buffer 2B (605), issues a paper discharge instruction and a new paper insertion instruction to the paper transport control task (65), and discharges the page-end paper, and , The number of printed lines and the page end are reported, the page end and the number of printed lines are displayed on the host device, and the next sheet insertion process is performed.

When the normal end of the series of operations is identified, the page end process executes the control buffer operation using the original control buffer 1A.
(602), it is switched to the control buffer 2A (604) side. When the control buffer is switched, the print control task (64)
The printing operation that was not performed earlier is stored in the control buffer 2A (6
04) is performed using the remaining control information, and the subsequent message processing is continued.

FIG. 7 illustrates the relationship between a message instruction of a host device and an actual operation of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention. Print line feed 1 (7
01) instruction and print line feed 2 (702) instruction,
The printer performs a print line feed 1 operation (703). At this time, when the page end is detected, the instruction for line feed 2 (702) is suspended, and the printer automatically discharges and sucks the next sheet (704).
I do. After that, the line feed 2 operation of which the operation is suspended (705)
And printing on the next sheet is continued.

FIG. 9 is a timing chart of the message processing of the host device and the printer according to one embodiment of the present invention. When the page end is detected at the end of the operation of the print line feed 2 message (902), the page end abnormality is reported to the host device together with the number of print completed lines counted from the paper suction. (904)
In response to this, the host device displays a page end and print completion on the screen.

When the operator inserts the next sheet into the printer (91), the operator executes a print line feed message 3 operation (92) and reports the normal end to the host device (905). Thereafter, the message instruction from the host device is continued. Do it.

[0027]

According to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained.

1) The printer detects the page end, automatically ejects the medium at the end of the page, accepts the next medium, and can continue the electronic message processing. It is not necessary to perform a re-sending process of a print instruction or a medium or a print message, so that the page end processing function can be used without preparing a special process in the host device.

2) Since the host device only needs to transmit the print message to the printer, there is no need to issue a message retransmission instruction or the like from the host device, so that the processing time can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a printer.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between a printing unit and paper conveyance in the printer.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between a sheet length and a page end.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a printer control program.

FIG. 5 is a timing chart of the message processing of the host device and the printer.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a control task of printer page end control according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a relation between a message instruction of a higher-level device and an actual operation of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a passbook printer.

FIG. 9 is a timing chart of message processing of the host device and the printer according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... host device, 2 ... line interface, 3 ... FE
PROM, 4 CPU, 5 RAM, 6 paper transport unit,
7 printing section, 21 bottom edge detection sensor, 22 top edge detection sensor, 23 print head, 24 platen, 25 servo motor with encoding, 41 message analysis processing task, 42 hardware control task, 43 paper transport Control task, 44 print control task, 46 control buffer 1,
47 Control buffer 2, 51 Telegram 1, 501 Print line feed instruction 1, 502 Print line feed instruction 2, 503 Print line feed instruction 3, 504 Page end abnormal report, 505 Paper discharge instruction, 506 Normal end report 1, 507: print line feed instruction 3 (retransmission), 508: normal end report 2, 61: message processing task, 62: message analysis task, 63: hardware control task, 64: print control task, 65: sheet transport control task, 66 page end processing task, 601 reception buffer, 602 control buffer 1A, 603 control buffer 1B, 604 control buffer 2A, 605 control buffer 2B, 71 electronic message 1, 701 print line feed instruction 1, 7
02: print line feed instruction 2, 703: print line feed operation 1, 70
4: discharge / next paper suction operation, 705: print line feed operation 2,
81: host device, 82: line interface, 83:
F-EPROM, 84 CPU, 85 RAM, 86
Paper transport unit, 87 printing unit, 88 magnetic recording unit, 901
... Print line feed instruction 1, 902 ... Print line feed instruction 2, 903 ...
Print line feed instruction 3, 904: Page end error report, 90
5: normal end report, 91: next sheet insertion processing, 92: print line feed instruction 3 printing operation.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A printer comprising a lower end detection sensor, an upper end detection sensor, and a servo motor with an encode output provided in a printer, and stores an encode counter value at the time of detecting the lower end of the medium and an encode counter value at the time of detecting the upper end of the medium.
The page length is calculated by calculating the medium length from the difference between the respective counter values, and calculating the preset page end position from the obtained medium length, and comparing the calculated page end position with the managed print position for each print line feed operation. Detects and suspends the message instruction operation from the host device at that time, automatically ejects the medium that has detected the page end, reports the number of lines printed and the page end to the host device, and sets the next medium. A paper end processing method for a printer, in which a continuation of an electronic message can be printed on a next medium by resuming an interrupted electronic message instruction operation after a standby state has been detected and insertion of a next medium has been detected.