Printer and its cache control method

Abstract

Abstract PURPOSE:To effectively use a RAM cache memory having a small capacity in order to increase the printing speed by a method wherein a cache status judgment device and a cache register prohibiting device perform storing controls of the RAM cache memory. CONSTITUTION:A cache status judgment device 19 judges whether or not a RAM cache 14 has no vacant area and is filled with characters of the present page when outline data is expanded to bit map data. A cache register prohibiting device 20 prevents characters from being registered in the RAM cache 14 till the next page when the RAM cache 14 is filled up with characters of the present page. When the RAM cache 14 is filled up with characters of a page while the data for the same page is expanded on a page memory 21, old RAM cache data of characters are not discarded at that time but at the time of processing the succeeding page. Therefore, the RAM cache 14 is effectively used for printing the succeeding page in which a lot of similar printing data are included, and the printing speed is increased.

Inventors

• 👤 Shigeki Shimizu
• 👤 茂樹 清水

Bibliographic Details