JP2648011B2 - Printer device - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer device, and more particularly, to a printer device adopting a memory free space display method for clarifying a free space of a memory held in the printer device.

[Prior Art] FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a conventional printer apparatus, and the prior art will be described.

A conventional printer device includes a memory unit 1 held in the printer device, and a memory management unit 2 for managing use of the memory unit 1.
An LCD unit 3 for controlling an interface between a person and the printer device 9; a switch unit 4 for controlling an interface between the person and the printer device 9; and outputting data sent from the host device 5 as characters or graphics on paper. And a control unit 6 having a function of reading the switch unit 4 and a function of displaying on the LCD unit 3.

The data sent from the host device 5 is analyzed by the control unit 6 as original data of characters or graphics to be output on paper, and a memory request is made to the memory management unit 2 for registration in the memory.

Next, the memory management unit 2 attempts to secure memory for the size requested from the memory unit 1. If there is no free memory for the requested size in the memory unit 1, the control unit 6
Is notified that there is no free memory.

Next, the control unit 6 converts the information that there is no free memory notified from the memory management unit 2 into a character pattern and displays the information on the LCD unit 3 in order to display the information on the LCD unit 3. That is, when there is no free area, the above-described message is first sent to the LCD unit 3.
To be displayed. What that means to know is empty in advance how much of the capacity than that of the above did not.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Since the conventional printer described above does not have a function of displaying the free space information of the memory unit 1, an attempt is made to register data in the printer from the host device 5 and Only when a message indicating that there is no free space and the memory is full on the LCD unit 3 is displayed, it is known that the transmitted data has not been registered.

At that time, if the free space of the memory is known in advance, it should be possible to prevent a data registration error.

In addition, various failures occur in developing the printer firmware. One of the failures will be described with reference to a failure in an error display function.

As described in the background art, when the memory management unit 2 is notified that there is no free space in the memory, the control unit 6
Displays a message on the LCD unit 3 indicating that the memory is full, but the control unit 6 displays a message indicating that the memory is full on the LCD unit 3 despite receiving a notification from the memory management unit 2 that the memory is full. If a message indicating that there is, there is a drawback that if there is no way to know the free space in the memory, it cannot be determined whether there is really no free space in the memory or a failure of the control unit 6.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides a memory unit for storing data from a host device, a memory management unit for managing use of the memory unit, and an LCD unit for displaying the status of the printer device. Has a function of reading information indicating whether it has been pressed or released, and outputting the information, and a function of outputting data sent from the higher-level device as characters or graphics on paper,
Further, in a printer device provided with a control unit having a function of reading the switch unit and having a display function on the LCD unit, when a free memory display designation is received from the switch unit, the memory management unit calculates the free memory capacity. A free memory control unit having a function of converting the result as a display character pattern and displaying the result on the LCD unit, and a memory so that the memory management unit can easily calculate the free memory when calculating the free memory. A memory block table for storing information indicating whether the divided portion is used or unused, and wherein the memory management unit totals the capacity of the unused memory blocks and The capacity is notified to the empty memory control unit. Further, the present invention is characterized in that the memory blocks are divided so that the capacities of the memory blocks are equal, and a value obtained by multiplying the capacity of one memory block by the number of unused memory blocks is used as a free memory capacity. It may be.

[Example] Next, an example of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

 FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 3 and 4 show an example showing the correspondence between the memory for calculating the capacity of the free memory and the memory block table.

FIG. 5 shows an example in which the free capacity of the memory is displayed on the LCD unit.

FIG. 1 shows a memory unit 1 held in the printer device,
A memory management unit 2 for managing the use of the memory unit 1, and an LCD unit 3 for controlling an interface between a person and a printer.
A switch unit 4 for controlling an interface between a human and a printer, and a function for outputting information sent from the host device 5 as characters or graphics on paper. When a free memory display designation is received from the control unit 6 having a display function and the switch unit 4, the memory management unit 2 is made to calculate the capacity of the free memory, and the result is converted into a display character pattern. 3 and a memory block table 7 provided to facilitate the calculation when the memory management 2 calculates the capacity of the free memory.
Are shown.

In the memory block table of FIG. 4, addresses 0 to 99 of the memory correspond to information of the number 0 in the memory block table. Similarly, addresses 100 to 199 of the memory correspond to the information of No. 1 in the memory block table, and addresses 1000 to 1099 of the memory correspond to the information of No. 10 in the memory block table.

An example of displaying the free space of the memory on the LCD in FIG. 5 is a display of a number converted into a character pattern and an added character string displayed on the LCD.

 Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described.

In the printer shown in FIG. 1, when the power is turned on, the control unit 6 grasps the capacity of the memory unit 1 of the printer and determines the memory capacity.

Next, when the control unit 6 notifies the memory management unit 2 of the memory capacity, the memory management unit 2 divides the memory shown in FIG.
Create a memory block table as a block. At this time, if the memory has 10,000 bytes, a memory block table for 100 blocks is required.

Next, the information sent from the host device 5 in FIG.
Assuming that 100 bytes are stored from address 1000 in the memory unit 1, the memory management unit 2 writes information "used" at the information of the number 10 in the memory block table shown in FIG. FIG. 4 shows the result.

At this time, when the switch unit 4 in FIG. 1 is pressed to request the display of the free space of the memory, the free memory control unit 8 recognizes that the switch unit 4 is pressed, and the memory management unit 2 Request to calculate the free space in the memory.

Next, the memory management unit 2 calculates the number of unused memory blocks in the memory block table of FIG. 4, and sets a value obtained by multiplying 100 by a free memory capacity as a free memory control unit 8 of FIG. Returns the value to The reason for multiplying by 100 is that one block is made in units of 100 bytes.

Next, the free memory control unit 8 shown in FIG. 1 converts the number given from the memory management unit 2 into a character pattern so that it can be recognized as a number when displaying the number on the LCD unit 3, and newly creates a character pattern shown in FIG. Are displayed on the LCD unit 3 in FIG. FIG. 5 shows the displayed result.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, the present invention calculates the free space in the internal memory in response to a switch depression event and displays the calculated free space on the LCD, so that the data transmitted from the host device due to lack of free space in the memory can be obtained. This has the effect of preventing the situation of not being registered beforehand.

Further, at the stage of printer firmware development, there is also an effect as a means for correcting a fault such as an erroneous message expression indicating that there is no free memory space even though there is sufficient free memory space.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a conventional printer, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a correspondence example between a memory unit and a memory block table in FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of correspondence between a memory unit and a memory block table when the memory unit in FIG. 1 is used, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example in which the free space of a memory is displayed on an LCD. 1 ... memory section, 2 ... memory management section, 3 ... LCD section,
4 switch section, 5 host device, 6 control section, 7
... Memory block table, 8 free memory control unit, 9 printer device.

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A memory unit for storing data from a host device, a memory management unit for managing the use of the memory unit, an LCD unit for displaying a status of a printer device, A switch unit that reads the information shown and outputs the information, and has a function of outputting data sent from the higher-level device as characters or graphics on paper,
Further, in a printer device provided with a control unit having a function of reading the switch unit and having a display function on the LCD unit, when a free memory display designation is received from the switch unit, the memory management unit calculates the free memory capacity. A free memory control unit having a function of converting the result as a display character pattern and displaying the result on the LCD unit, and a memory so that the memory management unit can easily calculate the free memory when calculating the free memory. A memory block table for storing information indicating whether the divided portion is used or unused, and wherein the memory management unit totals the capacity of the unused memory blocks and A printer device for notifying the empty memory control unit as a capacity. 2. The memory block is divided so that the capacity of the memory block is equal, and a value obtained by multiplying the capacity of one memory block by the number of unused memory blocks is used as a free memory capacity. The printer device according to claim 1, wherein