JPH0659828A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a higher print speed by utilizing effectively an idle time of a CPU for printer control in a printer employing outline fonts and expanding character patterns having the high frequency of use in a font cache in advance so as to provide a hit opportunity of the cache even from the time when the character is used at first. CONSTITUTION:A CPU 11 utilizes an idle time when the idle time takes place in its processing regardless of the presence of an external character generation request to read outline font data from a character generator 12, uses a character expansion hardware 14 to generate character bit map data and saves the data in a font cache area 17 defined in a RAM 16.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer device having a font cache RAM which uses an outline font.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a printer using an outline font, it takes a lot of time to develop the outline font into a bit map. Therefore, a bit pattern of a character once used is stored in a RAM (font cache RAM). A method of leaving it as cache data is adopted. As a result, when the same character is used for the second time and thereafter, it is only necessary to transfer the data from the font cache memory, so that the character pattern development time is not required and the printing speed can be increased.

[0003]

As described above, according to the conventional technique in the printer device using the outline font, the pattern expansion time is not required when the same character is used for the second time and thereafter. Although the processing becomes faster, the first processing involves character pattern expansion.
There was a problem that processing was slow.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances.
In a printer device that uses outline fonts,
An opportunity to hit the cache from the first use of the character by expanding the frequently used character pattern in the font cache memory in advance by effectively using the idle time of the CPU for printer control. Give
It is an object of the present invention to provide a printer device that achieves a higher printing speed.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention monitors the idle state of the operation of the printer control CPU, and when the CPU is in the idle state and the font cache RAM has an empty space, it is external (host side device). Even if there is no request to use characters, it has a function to perform character expansion according to a predetermined character priority and store it in the font cache RAM. To realize a printer device capable of performing.

[0006]

According to the present invention, the pattern of frequently used characters is stored in advance in the font cache RAM before the character use request is received, so that the high speed printing process can be performed from the first character use. It will be possible.

That is, the present invention utilizes the idle time of the printer control CPU to develop a pattern of a character on the font cache RAM according to a predetermined character priority. As a result, at the time of the first print output, the time required to develop the outline font data into the character bit pattern can be significantly reduced, and high-speed print processing can be performed.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the arrangement of a printer control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 11 is a CPU for controlling the entire printer. Here, the idle processing time is used to execute the expansion processing to the font cache RAM as shown in FIG. .

Reference numerals 12 to 17 are constituent elements of the printer control device which are controlled by the CPU 11, and are connected to the CPU 10 via the system bus 10. Of these, 12 is a character generator (CG) that stores outline font data, and is read-accessed according to a character code under the control of the CPU 11.

Reference numeral 13 is a ROM in which a control program executed by the CPU 11 is stored. Here, a control program for executing the pattern development processing to the font cache RAM as shown in FIG. 2 is stored.

Reference numeral 14 is character expansion hardware (ACC) for generating bitmap data from the outline font data read from the character generator 12 under the control of the CPU 11. 15 is a print engine (P
(RT) is an I / O interface section for exchanging data with RT. A RAM 16 is used as a temporary storage by the control program, and is read / write-accessed under the control of the CPU 11.

Reference numeral 17 denotes a font cache memory unit (Cache) provided on the RAM 16, which holds bitmap data generated by the character expanding hardware 14, and is referred to as a font cache RAM here. FIG. 2 is a font cache RAM according to the above embodiment.
5 is a flowchart showing a processing flow of a control program for executing the pattern expansion processing for the pattern.

In FIG. 2, S1 is a step for determining whether or not the printer is in an idle state. If there is data to be processed, steps S2 to S4 are performed.
Control is transferred to and printing is executed. Further, when there is no data to be processed, that is, when the CPU 11 has a free time (in the idle state), step A (S11, S).
12) Execute the pattern development processing to the font cache RAM by.

S2 and S3 are steps for processing received data, which interprets data and commands received from the host side (system control processor) and creates bitmap data for printing. S4 is a step for starting printing, and transfers the bitmap data generated in step S2 to the print engine (PRT).

A is a step for performing processing in an idle state, and comprises a step S11 for checking whether or not the font cache RAM 17 has a space, and a step S12 for creating cache data in advance. Here, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. When the system power is turned on, the CPU 11 follows the related hardware 1 according to the program stored in the ROM 13.
Check 2-16.

Then, the normal operation is started.
After the initialization on the printer side is completed, until the program on the host side starts running and starts sending data to the printer, the printer has no data to be processed and the font cache RAM 17 is empty.

Utilizing this time, the CPU 11 causes the ROM
According to the priority stored in 13, the outline font data is read from the character generator 12,
Character expansion hardware 14 is used to generate character bitmap data. The generated bitmap data is stored in the font cache area (font cache RAM) 17 defined in the RAM 16 (step A in FIG. 2).

Here, when the processing data is sent from the host side or the font cache RAM 17 becomes full, the preliminary preparation of the cache data is interrupted and the normal data processing (steps S2 to S4 in FIG. 2) is executed. To be done.

By such pre-expansion processing of the font cache data, it can be expected that the cache will be hit from the very first data, so that the printing processing speed can be improved. Specifically, since the normal font size in a personal computer is 9.6 points, the font cache data from the 1st level character of 9.6 points in advance under idle state immediately after the power is turned on. Expand processing. As a result, a cache hit can be expected from the very first data during print processing. At this time, when the attribute of the character use request command received from the host side later is the font designation of 12-po, the cache hit does not occur and the processing speed becomes the same as the conventional one. The above-described font cache data pre-expansion process can be applied not only to a printer but also to a display device, for example.

[0021]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, in the printer device using the outline font, the idle time of the CPU for the printer control is effectively utilized to make it possible to previously use the font cache with the frequency of use. Since the pattern of the high characters is expanded, the chance of hitting the cache from the first use of the characters is given, so that the printing speed can be further increased.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing flow of the embodiment shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 ... CPU, 12 ... Character generator (C
G), 13 ... ROM, 14 ... Character expansion hardware (A
CC), 15 ... I / O interface section, 16 ... RA
M, 17 ... Font cache memory section (font cache RAM), PRT ... Print engine (printer mechanism section).

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Internal reference number FI technical display location G09G 5/22 9061-5G

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A character generator for storing a plurality of characters in a font form for describing outlines, and processing means for reading character data from the character generator and enlarging or reducing the character data to generate a bit pattern of the character. A printer device having a CPU for controlling the printer and a font cache RAM in which a bit pattern of a character generated by the processing means is stored as character data, wherein the CPU has idle time for processing. At this time, irrespective of whether or not there is a character generation request from the outside, a process is performed in which the character data is generated and stored in the font cache RAM during the idle time. 2. A process for generating character data and storing the character data in the font cache RAM when the operation is in an empty state and the font cache RAM has an empty area regardless of whether there is a request to generate a character from the outside. The printer device according to claim 1, wherein the printer device executes. 3. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the CPU executes a process of generating character data according to a standard attribute and storing the character data in the font cache RAM before receiving a character generation request from the outside when the power is turned on. apparatus.