Seiko Epson Corporation

Satoru Imai

Masahiro Minowa

Satoshi Nakajima

Yuji Kawase

A printing control unit for a thermal printer that prints by applying heat energy to a recording medium and is able to operate in multiple print modes, includes a line buffer unit, a shift register unit, and a configuration registration unit. The line buffer unit accumulates current dot printing data supplied from a host. The shift register unit gets and passes the current dot printing data and previous dot history data from the line buffer unit to a logic circuit unit. The configuration registration unit stores configuration data for setting data logic of the logic circuit unit.

Thermal printer

A thermal printer for printing by applying heat energy to a recording medium uses a single logic circuit arrangement to enable operating in a plurality of print modes, and enables easily changing the control logic of each print mode to afford high quality printing. Heating elements apply heat energy to the recording medium. A heating element drive circuit is provided for each heating element to drive a particular heating element. A printing control unitsupplies predetermined drive signals to the heating element drive circuits based on pixel printing data input from an external source. The printing control unitcomprises a configuration registration unitfor storing predetermined value groups corresponding to the drive signal supply patterns so that the value groups can be changed. A logic circuit unitupdates the logic operation applied to the pixel printing data according to the value group stored in the configuration registration unit, and changes the drive signals to track the supply pattern.

A thermal printer comprising a printing control unit for correcting current dot printing data supplied from a host based on a previous dot history, and supplying the dot printing data to a print head unit. In accordance with the invention, the printing control unit comprises a line buffer unit for accumulating the current dot printing data; a shift register unit for getting and passing the current dot printing data and previous dot history data from the line buffer unit to a logic circuit unit, which is capable of changing data logic for driving the print head unit based on output from the shift register unit; a configuration registration unit for storing configuration data for setting the data logic of the logic circuit unit according to an energizing pattern; a node control circuit unit for switching the logic circuit unit to output data to the print head unit; and a sequencer unit for controlling the timing of the shift register units, the logic circuit units, and the node control circuit unit.

An interrupt signal generating device comprises interrupt detection units ( ) each adapted to output a detection signal (DET- to DET-n) in response to a respective input signal (IN- to IN-n) representing an interrupt event; and an interrupt handler unit ( ). The interrupt handler has a plurality of input terminals for receiving the detection signals (DET- to DET-n) and a plurality of output terminals for outputting corresponding interrupt signals to a CPU, and signal distribution means ( ) connecting said input terminals to said output terminals and establishing a predetermined but changeable assignment between the input and output terminals, wherein each of said input terminals is assigned to one of said outputs terminals such that an interrupt signal (INT- to INT-n) is output from this output terminal in response to a detection signal (DET- to DET-n) applied to the respective input terminal.

Device for and method of generating interrupt signals

A printing system, a thermal printer, a printer driver, a printing control method, and a data storage medium control the printing process according to the type of thermal paper that is loaded into the printer when the paper is replaced. By appropriately controlling address selector , a print head controller stores black print pixel data and red print pixel data in first data buffer for storing low energy level print pixel data or second data buffer for storing high energy level print pixel data according to the type of thermal paper in use. A logic circuit unit outputs the current pattern data to the print head based on the low level print pixel data and high level print pixel data.

Printing system, thermal printer, printer control method, and data storage medium

The present invention provides in a line thermal printer for producing different colors in a print medium according to a level of heat energy applied to the print medium: storage buffers B to B having a plurality of areas for storing a line of print pixel data according to the number of plural heating elements for forming print pixels; a control circuit for identifying whether the printer is set to a monochrome mode or a multicolor mode; a CPU for storing to the storage buffers B to B the next line of print pixel data to be printed and one or a plurality of lines of print pixel data printed immediately before (when the printer is set to the monochrome mode), and storing to the storage buffers B to B at least a next line of print pixel data of each color to be printed when the printer is set to the multicolor mode; and a drive data generator for outputting data determining the drive time of each drive circuit of the heating elements based on data stored in the storage buffers. Thus the present invention can provide a line thermal printer capable of switching between monochrome and multicolor printers, and accomplishing high quality monochrome printing with consideration given to a printing history, and also printing in multiple colors.

Growing community of inventors

Nagano-ken, Japan

Satoru Imai