JPH085214B2 - Character pattern data generator - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a character pattern data generator capable of outputting cursive characters.

[Prior art]

Conventionally, as a character pattern data generator for printing cursive characters, a predetermined pattern is interposed between the cursive characters before and after the cursive characters in order to continue between the characters. The characters were continuous. Such a character pattern data generator is disclosed in JP-A-59-231583. According to the description of this publication, a cursive character string is represented by character patterns 1a, 1b, as shown in FIG.
It is decomposed into 1c and interpolation patterns 2a and 2b. For example, the cursive character "abc" is composed of a combination of three character patterns 1a, 1b, 1c and two interpolation patterns 2a, 2b. To determine the interpolation patterns 2a and 2b, determine the pen-up point PU of the character of the cursive a just before and the pen-down point PD of the character of the cursive b to be printed next, and draw a straight line or a curved line between them. I am making a connected interpolation pattern.

[Problems of conventional technology]

According to the conventional technique shown in FIG. 8 (a) described above, for example, the pen-up point PU and the pen-down point PD of the interpolation pattern are expressed by 16 bits, but if the line is continued with this number of bits, As shown in FIG. 8 (b), depending on the cursive characters, the pen-up point PU or the pen-down point PD is angular and not smooth, which causes an unnatural cursive character.

[Object of the Invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a character pattern data generator capable of smoothly splicing cursive characters and printing them.

[Main points of the invention]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a character pattern data generating device for generating character pattern data corresponding to an input character code, in which character pattern data designed according to the shapes of various characters connected later is
Based on a character pattern data memory that stores a plurality of character codes, a first character code that was input, and a second character code that was input to be printed following this character,
A read control circuit for selecting and reading out optimum pattern data from a plurality of character pattern data groups stored as character pattern data corresponding to the first character code from the character pattern data memory. To do.

Example of Invention

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an overall circuit block diagram of a character pattern data generator of the present invention. A character code and command data from a host computer are input to an input terminal T1 and input to an input section 3 which is an input port. Supplied.
The data input to the input unit 3 is supplied to the system RAM 5 connected to the microcomputer (CPU) 4 via the data and address bus lines. CPU4 is system ROM6, character generator ROM (CGROM
7) and the writing-to-character control unit 8 via the data and address bus lines, and is configured to exchange various data as will be described later.

The CPU 4 executes the control operation of the entire system by the program stored in the system ROM 6. For example, the above-described character code or the like input from the input unit 3 is temporarily stored in the system RAM 5, or the character code or the like is read from the system RAM 5 byte by byte.

The cursive character control unit 8 is a circuit that performs a control operation when the input character code is a character code corresponding to a cursive character, as will be described later in detail.

The CGROM 7 described above generates a character pattern corresponding to an address by giving a storage address of character pattern data corresponding to a predetermined character code. In the case of this example, ordinary character pattern data such as English letters and numbers and alphabetic writing character pattern data are stored.

For example, FIG. 2 shows an example of correspondence between an input character code and a character pattern stored in the CGROM 7 corresponding to the input character code. In particular, only alphabetic characters are cursive characters. Although not shown, the CGROM 7 also stores a normal character pattern. In the character pattern of FIG. 2, uppercase letters A to Z and lowercase letters a to z shown in a bold frame may be followed by cursive letters, and in the present invention, these are defined as forward letters. To do.

Further, in the code table shown in FIG. 2, lowercase letters a to z in the dotted line frame are characters that can follow the above characters, and are defined as rear characters in the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a character code conversion table for characters that are unlikely to be used by connecting with other characters (non-connected characters) and is stored in the cursive character control unit 8. When the character code of the non-connecting character is input, the corresponding character pattern data is designated by 1-byte character code data input and printing is performed, as described later.

FIG. 3 is a character code conversion table for converting the character codes belonging to the above-mentioned forward character and backward character into the corresponding character pattern data storage address of CGROM7 when the cursive character is printed. Remembered in. In this conversion table, input character codes (52 types) of 26 uppercase letters A to Z and 26 lowercase letters a to z to be printed are arranged on the B ₁ code (41H to 7AH) on the vertical axis. Moreover, the subsequent characters in the input character code is the horizontal axis of the B ₂ code (61H～7AH) to be printed following the aforementioned printing target character (26 species) are arranged. Then, when selecting the character pattern data for the character to be printed in CGROM7,
It is configured to specify using the B ₁ code and the B ₂ code. In other words, the character to be printed has a different design of the connecting part depending on the subsequent character that is printed after that character, so the target pattern data that is designed to correspond to each backward character (lowercase 26 characters) is to be printed. Character code
It can be specified by the B ₁ code and the B ₂ code which is the character code to be input next. In addition, the input character code that follows may not be a backward character. In this case, it is not necessary to design the character to be printed to correspond to a backward character, so specify a universal alphabetic character with B ₂ code as X. You can do it.

Although FIGS. 2 and 3 show the design of the character pattern selected as a result corresponding to the character code, in reality, the CGROM 7 in which the pattern data corresponding to each design is stored is stored. This means that the internal address data is selected.

 The printing operation of this example will be described below.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the flow of print control during normal character printing and cursive character printing. For example, a normal English character is a 1-byte character code, and the character is immediately determined. At that point, the pattern data can be expanded from the CGROM 7 to the frame memory 9, but in the cursive character pattern specification method, it is 2 bytes. Character code is required. That is, in step ST ₁ , the CPU 4 sequentially reads the input data accumulated in the system RAM 5. When the read data is command data, what kind of control command is analyzed. Next, as a result of this command analysis, the command data is normal character /
If the command is a cursive character designation command, the CPU 4 performs a normal character / cursive character switching control in accordance with the designation in the second step. For example, if printing of a normal character is designated, normal character code control is executed for the character code input thereafter. That is, 1 read from the system RAM 5 thereafter
It calculates the appropriate pattern data storage address of CGROM7 from byte character code, reads the character pattern data corresponding the CGROM7 (step _{ST 3, ST 4, ST 5} ). After that, the read character pattern data is stored in the frame memory 9
Storing to (step ST _6). After that, similar processing is repeated for a desired amount of character codes, and when a predetermined amount of pattern data is accumulated, the output device 10 prints normal characters on a sheet.

On the other hand, when cursive character printing is designated by the command data described above, the CPU 4 controls cursive character printing. That is, the character code B ₁ to be printed is output to the cursive character control unit 8, and the character code B ₂ to be input next is output. The cursive character control unit 8 calculates the address data corresponding to the character code from the both input character code data by using the above-mentioned character code conversion table (FIGS. 3 and 4), and the corresponding data in the CGROM 7 is calculated. Read the pattern data (steps ST ₇ , ST ₈ , ST ₅ ). After that, the read character pattern data is stored in the frame memory 9, and when a predetermined amount of pattern data is accumulated as described above, the output device
Print on paper by 10.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining the cursive character processing described above in more detail. That is, CPU4 is system RA
When the data read from the M5 it determines that the command data for designating a cursive character storage, first, the first character code then read from the system RAM5 as the character code of 1 byte, the byte memory B ₁ in CPU4 Do (step
STP ₁ ). In the next second step STP _2, it is judged whether or not this is the forward character in the cursive character. As described above, the uppercase letters A to Z and the lowercase letters a to z shown in the thick frame in FIG. 2 correspond to the forward letters. Therefore, the CPU 4 determines whether or not the data stored in the byte memory B ₁ is a front character by confirming whether the data code is 41H to 5AH or 61H to 7AH. If it is judged that it is not the forward character by this judgment,
The third step STP ₃ outputs the x · B ₁ code.
When the x · B ₁ code is input, the cursive character control unit 8 displays x
The code is ignored, and the storage address of the corresponding pattern is selected only by the B ₁ code using the character code conversion table for unconnected characters shown in FIG.

On the other hand, if the data stored in memory B ₁ is a forward character, CP
When U4 judges, it does not output the character code in byte memory B ₁ and waits for the input of the next 1-byte character code. After that, when the next 1-byte character code is input as shown in the fourth step STP ₄ , it is stored in the byte memory B ₂ in the CPU 4. Next, it is judged whether or not the character code stored in the byte memory B ₂ is a backward character (step STP ₅ ). As described above, the lowercase letters a to z shown in the dotted line frame in FIG. 2 correspond to the backward character, and if it is judged that the character code stored in the byte memory B ₂ is not the backward character code (61H to 7AH). 6th step Output B ₁ · x code as shown in STP ₆ . The B ₁ x code corresponds to the character code conversion table of FIG. 3, and the storage address in the CGROM 7 of the character pattern data in the vertical x column is determined only by the B ₁ code. Therefore, at this time, the character code B is processed in accordance with the process of ST5, 6
_The character pattern data corresponding to 1.x is read from CGROM7.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step STP ₅ that the character code stored in the byte memory B ₂ is a backward character, step ST
As shown in P ₇ , the character code stored in the byte memories B ₁ and B ₂ is input to the cursive character control unit 8. The cursive character control unit 8 selects the address where the corresponding character pattern data of the CGROM 7 is stored by the character code conversion table of FIG. 3 according to the output B ₁ and B ₂ codes, and outputs the address data.
Output to CGROM7. For example, the alphabetic character "Ab
・ ・ In case of “”, “41H” is output as code B ₁ from byte memory B ₁ that stores the character code of “A”, and “b”
“62H” is output as the code B ₂ from the byte memory B ₂ storing the character code of. In response to this, the cursive character control unit 8 reads "41" from the character code conversion table of FIG.
The character pattern 11 corresponding to "H" and "62H" is selected and the address of the CGROM 7 in which the pattern data is stored is output.
Also, for example, in the case of the alphabet "Ca ...",
"C" character code is outputted "43H" as code B ₁ from byte memory B ₁ are stored, "a" as a code B ₂ bytes memory B ₂ character code is stored in the "61H"
Is output. In response to this, the character pattern 12 is selected and the corresponding address is output to the CGROM 7 as described above.

In this way, the cursive character control unit 8 outputs to the CGROM 7 the address data from which the corresponding character pattern should be read. After that, the CPU 4 shifts the character code of the byte memory B ₂ to the byte memory B ₁ and waits for the input of the next character code (step STP ₈ ). After that, the above flow (STP ₄ ~ ST
Repeat P ₈₎ each time the character code is input, reads the corresponding character pattern data from CGROM7.

The cursive character pattern read from the CGROM 7 at this time is the pattern data selected corresponding to the next successive character pattern as described above. Therefore, smoothly continuous alphabet characters are printed as cursive characters.

In FIG. 7, the processing operations of normal character printing and cursive character printing when printing the character “Print” are associated with each other. In this way, the CGRO selected by the cursive character control unit 8
The character pattern data read from the CGROM 7 by the address of M7 is stored in the frame memory 9 for one page of the paper and then printed on the paper by the output device 10.

Although the printer for printing has been described in the above-described embodiments, the present invention can be applied to a display device and the like, and is not limited to the above-described embodiments and does not depart from the gist of the present invention. Various changes are possible.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above, the external input corresponds to 1-byte character, but internally by controlling with 2-byte 1-character, the character pattern data of the front character is changed corresponding to the rear character even for the same character. It is possible to smooth the "connection" of cursive characters, and there is no need to recognize the pen-up point PU and pen-down point PD of cursive characters as in the past.
Further, it is possible to obtain a character pattern data generator which does not require insertion of a special interpolation pattern.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram showing an embodiment of a character pattern data generator of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a table showing correspondence between input character codes and output character patterns, and FIG. The figure shows the character code conversion table for finding the corresponding character pattern data storage address in the CGROM from the two character codes that are continuously printed. Fig. 4 shows the character code conversion table for unconnected characters. FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the overall operation of the present invention, FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing a control operation at the time of writing cursive character, and FIG. 7 is a concrete character pattern data when performing normal character and cursive character printing. FIGS. 8A and 8B are explanatory diagrams showing a selection operation, and are explanatory diagrams showing a printing example of a “connecting” portion by a conventional character pattern generator. 3 ... input section, 4 ... computer (CPU), 5 ... system RAM, 6 ... system ROM, 7 ... CGROM, 8 ... cursive character control section, 9 ... frame memory, 10 ... output apparatus.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (56) Reference JP-A-59-231583 (JP, A) JP-A-62-177586 (JP, A) JP-A-62-186290 (JP, A)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A character pattern data generator for generating character pattern data corresponding to an input character code, wherein a plurality of character pattern data designed according to the shapes of various characters connected later are stored for each character code. Corresponding to the first character code from the character pattern data memory based on the character pattern data memory, the input first character code, and the second character code input to be printed following this character. A character pattern data generator comprising: a read control circuit that selects and reads optimum pattern data from a plurality of character pattern data groups stored as character pattern data.