The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 10, 1984
Filed:
Dec. 27, 1982
James M Rakes, Leander, TX (US);
Errol R Williams, Round Rock, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A drive system for energizing the elements of a fixed bar printer of the type in which a pair of parallel bars, of, for example, resistive material, have a series of first connections to individual bars interspersed by second connections to both bars. By driving a second connection, any one of four elements can be energized by selecting one of the adjacent first connections as a voltage source path. The drive lines which return current are fed by a driver/shift register system having a stage for each drive line. Data is fed to the driver/shift register system serially from a plurality of memories, each of which has a capacity equal to that of the driver/shift register system. The memories are grouped in fours, so that each memory stores data for energizing one of the print bar elements in each group of four defined by a drive connection and its adjacent current return connections. An addressing system controls the sequence of loading and unloading the memories. This sequence differs in accordance with whether non coded, i.e. line, data or coded, i.e. binary coded character, data is received.