JP2887159B2 - Facsimile machine - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a facsimile machine, and more particularly, to a facsimile machine that sends a document received by the facsimile machine to a plurality of computers.

(Prior Art) Facsimile machines having a mailbox function are widely used. FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram of a storage area of an image information storage unit of the facsimile machine.

As shown in the figure, a general document storage section A and a mailbox area B are provided in the storage area of the image information storage section. In the general document storage unit A, received documents not addressed to the mailbox are stored, and the mailbox area B
Stores received documents addressed to a predetermined mailbox. This mailbox storage area corresponds to a password registered in advance.

If the protocol command includes mailbox specification information, the transmitted document is stored in the mailbox area (hereinafter, simply referred to as a mailbox) based on the specification information, and only the person who has entered the password receives this document. The stored data can be extracted.

By the way, there is also a system in which the password is input from a personal computer (hereinafter, referred to as a personal computer) to remotely control the facsimile apparatus so that documents stored in a mailbox can be printed by a printer of the facsimile apparatus. Have been.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) The above-described conventional technology has the following problems.

The storage area used as the mailbox is allocated in advance and its size is limited. And, the mailbox of the facsimile machine is generally used by a plurality of registrants. Therefore, if you accumulate a large amount of documents addressed to a particular registrant,
There is a problem that the storage area that can be used by other registrants is greatly limited.

In addition, the personal computer may not be used merely to output a stored document to a printer of a facsimile apparatus, but may be configured to be able to transfer the stored document to the personal computer via a network. . However, by storing documents addressed to a personal computer, such as a mail document addressed to a mailbox of a personal computer, which is not provided in a conventional facsimile machine, the storage area is greatly restricted compared to the conventional facsimile machine. It is important to avoid risks.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a facsimile apparatus capable of quickly distributing a received document to an addressee in order to solve the above problems and reduce the load on the storage means of the facsimile apparatus.

(Means and Actions for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the above problems and achieve the object, the present invention provides a received document storage unit including a mailbox and a general document storage area, Command determination means for determining which of the documents is the identification data in the protocol command, mailbox storage means for storing mailbox information for the facsimile apparatus and mailbox information corresponding to the personal computer; When it is determined that the document is a mail document, the identification data in the protocol command and the mail are used to determine whether the mail document is addressed to the mailbox of the personal computer or the mailbox of the facsimile machine. Stored in the box storage means The document destination determining means for determining based on the mail box information corresponding to the facsimile apparatus and the personal computer, and the document destination determining means determine that the destination of the mail document is a mailbox of a personal computer. Writing means for storing the mail document in the mailbox of the received document storage means; calling means for calling the personal computer subsequent to storing the mail document in the mailbox of the received document storage means; Transfer means for transferring a document from the mailbox of the received document storage means to the mailbox of the personal computer in response to an instruction signal returned from the personal computer in response to the call; and transfer of the document to the mailbox of the personal computer. Documents before It is characterized in that; and a deleting means for deleting from the mail box of the received document storage unit.

According to the present invention thus configured, the facsimile apparatus distributes the received document to the mailbox provided in the personal computer based on the identification information in the protocol command and the mailbox information corresponding to the personal computer. Therefore, the document addressed to the registrant who uses the mailbox in the personal computer is used as a mailbox because the image information storage unit in the facsimile apparatus is used only as a storage unit for temporarily storing the document. Even if a large number of mail documents addressed to the personal computer mailbox used by a specific registrant are stored in the storage area of the facsimile machine, the storage area is not restricted by the mail document addressed to the personal computer mailbox, The risk due to this limitation can be avoided.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. First
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an automatic document distribution system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, a facsimile machine 2 and personal computers 3, 4 and 5 are connected to a network 1.

The facsimile device 2 includes a communication control circuit 21 connected to a system bus 20, a main storage device 22, and a system control device (CP
U) 23, and an interface circuit 24.

On the other hand, the PC 3 is also connected to the CP connected to the system bus 30.
It has a U31, a main storage device 32, and an interface circuit 33.

The main storage device 22 of the facsimile machine 2 is provided with a mailbox area as shown in FIG. 4, and the main storage device 32 of the personal computer 3 is also provided with a mailbox.

Since the personal computers 4 and 5 have the same configuration as the personal computer 3, their detailed illustration is omitted.

With the above configuration, among the documents input to the facsimile apparatus from the public line via the communication control circuit 21, documents with mailbox designation are stored in the mailbox area of the main storage device 22, and documents without designation are stored in the mailbox area. It is stored in the general document storage section of the main storage device.

Among the documents stored in the mailbox area, the documents specified as the destinations of the personal computers 3 to 5 are:
From the main storage device 22 of the facsimile machine 2 to the personal computers 3 to 5
Will be forwarded to the specified PC mailbox.

Documents that are not addressed to the mailboxes of the personal computers 3 to 5 among the stored documents are held in the mailbox area in the main storage device 22 of the facsimile machine 2 and separately supplied from input means (not shown). The printout is performed by a predetermined printing device in accordance with the printout instruction.

The interface circuits 24 and 33 are appropriately selected and used depending on whether the data transmission method between the facsimile apparatus 2 and the personal computers 3 to 5 is serial or parallel. For example, in the case of a serial transmission system, an example of using an interface circuit conforming to RS-232C of the American Institute of Electronics Engineers Standard, and in the case of a parallel transmission system, an interface circuit conforming to SCSI of the standard is used.

Next, a function for transferring a document received by the facsimile apparatus 2 to a scheduled personal computer will be described. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the main functions of the present embodiment.

In the figure, a protocol command analysis unit 6 in the communication control circuit 21 determines whether a received document is a document addressed to a mailbox or a general document based on the protocol command. The specified identification data is detected.

The mailbox storage unit 7 stores a mailbox number of the facsimile apparatus 2 registered in advance and a mailbox number of the personal computers 3 to 5.

The mailbox number is supplied from the mailbox storage unit 7 to the mailbox determination unit 8, and identification data for identifying the mailbox is supplied from the protocol command analysis unit 6. Mailbox judgment unit 8
Then, based on these numbers and identification data, it is determined whether the received document is a document addressed to a mailbox in the personal computers 3 to 5 or a document addressed to a mailbox set in a main storage device inside the facsimile machine.

That is, the transmitting facsimile apparatus sends the identification data of the mailbox created in the protocol command used in the facsimile apparatus irrespective of whether the destination is the facsimile apparatus or the personal computer. A mailbox such as 3 can be specified as a destination. In other words, the facsimile machine on the transmitting side only needs to transmit the same mailbox designation information as the conventional one as the identification data in the protocol command, and the conventional facsimile machine needs to transmit the mailbox of the personal computer as the destination. Does not need to use different data formats or communication procedures.

As a result, in the case of a document addressed to the mailboxes of the personal computers 3 to 5, the mailbox determining unit 8 issues a command to call the designated personal computer to the personal computer calling unit 9.

The mailbox determination unit 8 calls the personal computer and outputs a write instruction signal to the write control unit 10. In response to the write instruction signal, the write control unit 10 adds the mailbox number supplied from the protocol command analysis unit 6 to the received document, and stores the same in the image information storage unit 22a.

The reading control unit 11 reads the stored document in response to the reading instruction signal returned from the personal computer in response to the call from the personal computer calling unit 9. The read document is transferred to a mailbox in the personal computer.

The operation of this embodiment having the above functions will be described with reference to a flowchart.

In FIG. 3, an incoming call is monitored in step S1, and if an incoming call is detected, the process proceeds to step S2.

In step S2, it is determined whether or not the received document is addressed to a mailbox. If it is determined that the document is addressed to the mailbox, the process proceeds to step S3.

In step S3, it is determined which of the mailbox in the facsimile apparatus and the mailbox of the personal computer is designated as the destination of the document.

On the other hand, if there is no mailbox specified, step
Proceeding to S10, normal reception is performed, and the document is stored in the image information storage unit 22a.

If it is determined in step S3 that the mailbox in the facsimile apparatus is specified as the destination of the document, the process proceeds to step S9, and the document is stored with the mailbox number added.

If the mailbox of the personal computer is designated as the destination of the document, the process proceeds to step S4, and the document is stored with the mailbox number added.

In step S5, the personal computer having the designated mailbox is called.

In step S6, it is determined whether or not there is a response from the personal computer. If there is a response, the process proceeds to step S7, and the stored document is transferred to the mailbox of the personal computer.

In step S8, the document whose transfer has been completed is deleted from the image information storage unit 22a of the facsimile apparatus.

On the other hand, if the determination in step S6 is negative, that is, if there is no response from the personal computer for some reason, such as when the power is not turned on, the process ends without deleting the document stored in the image information storage unit 22a.

Since the stored documents have not been deleted, if access is made from a computer after that and a transfer instruction is issued again,
In response to this, the document is read and transferred to the personal computer.

As described above, in this embodiment, a network is constructed by matching one facsimile apparatus with a plurality of personal computers, and the main storage device of each personal computer can be used as a mailbox.

Since the personal computer may be used by a plurality of persons, the number of mailboxes provided in the main storage device is not limited to one, and a plurality of mailboxes may be provided.

(Effects of the Invention) As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, whether the received information is a general document addressed to the facsimile apparatus, a mail document addressed to the mailbox of the own station, or the received facsimile apparatus Whether the document is a mail document addressed to the connected personal computer can be easily determined based on the identification data of the protocol command and the mailbox information stored in the mailbox storage means. Then, based on this determination, the mail document addressed to the personal computer can be transferred to the personal computer immediately after reception, and the received document can be deleted from the mailbox after the transfer processing. That is, the received document is distributed to the destination at an early stage, and the burden on the main storage device of the facsimile apparatus can be reduced by promptly deleting the received document after the distribution.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a main part of a system showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of a main part of a facsimile machine,
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment, and FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of an image information storage unit. 1. System bus 2. Facsimile machine 3-5
... PC, 6 ... Protocol command analyzer, 7 ...
... Mail box storage unit, 8 ... Mail box judgment unit, 9 ... PC calling unit, 22,33 ... Main storage unit, 24,
33 ... Interface circuit

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A facsimile apparatus connected to a personal computer having a mailbox to constitute a network system, comprising: a received document storage unit comprising a mailbox and a general document storage area; and a received document being any of a general document and a mail document. Command determining means for determining whether or not there is a packet based on identification data in a protocol command; mailbox storage means for storing mailbox information corresponding to the facsimile apparatus and mailbox information corresponding to the personal computer; If it is determined to be an email document,
Whether the mail document is addressed to the mailbox of the personal computer or the mailbox of the facsimile machine, the identification data in the protocol command and the facsimile machine and the personal computer stored in the mailbox storage means. A document destination determining unit that determines based on mailbox information corresponding to a computer; and the received document storage when the document destination determining unit determines that the destination of the mail document is a mailbox of a personal computer. Writing means for storing the mail document in the mailbox of the means; calling means for calling the personal computer subsequent to storing the mail document in the mailbox of the received document storage means; Compilation Transfer means for transferring a document from the mailbox of the received document storage means to a mailbox of a personal computer in response to an instruction signal returned from the data receiving apparatus; and receiving the document transferred to the mailbox of the personal computer. A facsimile apparatus comprising: a deletion unit for deleting a document from a mailbox of a document storage unit.