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EP0044667A1 Expired / Lapsed EP ⏱️ 0.0 years remaining

Character overprinting in non-impact printers

Assignee: Unisys Corp
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Filing: 1981-07-08
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2001-07-08
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Abstract

Abstract In a character overprinting system for a laser non-impact printer (16), control bits are generated and assigned to data words transmitted from a host system (18). An underline control bit identifies required underlining and a data control bit identifies the data word as a character space or a character shape. An intermediate storage register (32) stores a line of data words and associated control bits for overprinting. Stored data words and associated control bits from the intermediate storage register (32) and data words and associated control bits from the host system (18) are compared in an overprinting circuitry (30) to effect a selected merger of the data words and a selected modification of the control bits, in accordance with a pre-selected set of overprint rules. The merged data words and modified control bits are once more transmitted to the intermediate storage register, either for further overprinting or for transmission to a character generator (12). The modified underline control bit stored in the intermediate storage register are also transmitted to the character generator for selected character shapes to be underlined when printed.

Inventors

  • 👤 James Hugh Cullen

Bibliographic Details

Application Number —
Jurisdiction EP
Data Source google_patents
Last Synchronized 2026-10-29 11:55
CPC Classifications
G; G06; G06K; G06K15/00; G06K15/02; G06K15/12; G06K15/128; B; B41; B41J; B41J29/00; B41J29/26; Y; Y10; Y10S; Y10S101/00; Y10S101/37

Claims Analysis

Total Claims: 6
Claim 1
Independent Claim 124 words
A print control system to control printing by a non-impact printer (16) of data words received from a host system (18), characterised in that the system comprises means (18, 22) to assign control bits to each data word identifying it as a character shape or character space, an intermediate store (32) to store data words and their associated control bits, and overprinting circuitry (30) arranged to merge corresponding character positions of received data words and data words returned from the intermediate store (32) according to pre-selected overprint rules, and to pass on the merged data words to the intermediate store (32) and means to determined whether the stored merged data words are to be printed or undergo further merging with subsequently received data words.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim 124 words
A print control system to control printing by a non-impact printer (16) of data words received from a host system (18), characterised in that the system comprises means (18, 22) to assign control bits to each data word identifying it as a character shape or character space, an intermediate store (32) to store data words and their associated control bits, and overprinting circuitry (30) arranged to merge corresponding character positions of received data words and data words returned from the intermediate store (32) according to pre-selected overprint rules, and to pass on the merged data words to the intermediate store (32) and means to determined whether the stored merged data words are to be printed or undergo further merging with subsequently received data words.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim 17 words
A system as claimed in claim 1, in which the printer is a non-impact laser printer (16).
Claim 4
Dependent Claim 50 words
A system as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, in which the control bit code assigning means is a translation table (22) generating a pair of control bits identifying a data word as a character shape or character space and as a non-underline or an underlined data word respectively.
Claim 5
Independent Claim 109 words
A system as claimed in any preceding claim, in which the overprinting means (30) comprises a comparator (202) to compare a pair of data words for equality and generate a corresponding output (204), each pair of data words comprising one received data word and one returned data word, a merging circuit (210) to generate in response to the comparator output an overprinted control bit code for each overprinted data word and a selection circuit (214) to select one of the pair of the data words in response to an output signal from the merging circuit (210) and to transmit the selected data word to the intermediate storage means (32).
Claim 6
Independent Claim 58 words
A system as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, in which a character generator (12), including a character generator memory to store a plurality of character shapes each of which has an associated starting address, receives data words ready to be printed and their control codes, the data word being supplied to the character generator memory.

References Cited (Backward Citations)

US4107786A Cited
EP0002699A1 Cited

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