Registration Means for Printers and the Like

The present invention relates to line printer registration means and more particularly to a novel registration means employing a gated oscillator whose operation is accurately triggered by light sensing means.

Line printers, especially of the dot matrix type, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,703,949, print vertically aligned dot patterns which are spaced at the desired predetermined intervals along a line of print, the appropriate positioning thereof being obtained by an elongated opaque registration strip arranged therealong and adapted to be positioned between a light sensitive device and a light source in order to develop a "video" pulse as the carriage is moved past each transparent registration slit. The output pulses developed by the phototransistor are ultimately utilized to enable the print head solenoids.

In applications wherein it is desired to provide "normal" spacing between the dot patterns forming each character and to provide "compressed" spacing so as to be able to selectively print, for example, 80 or 132 characters per line of print in the same printer, it is necessary to provide a second registration strip and a second cooperating set of lamp and phototransistor elements. Obviously, in applications wherein it is desired to provide further dot pattern concentrations of even higher densities, additional registration strips and cooperating LEDs and phototransistors must be provided, as well as requiring means for switching between and among the various registration strips, light sources and LEDs.

The present invention is characterized by providing a registration technique employing a solid state gated oscillator which, due to its design, assures the proper registration spacing between and among the dot patterns; permits a simple and rapid adjustment for altering dot spacing; and avoids the need for a registration strip of varying density for each particular desired spacing.

The present invention is comprised of an LED and phototransistor mounted preferably at a position adjacent one marginal end of a paper document within the printer and spaced so as to provide a clearance path or gap therebetween. An opaque flag member is mounted for movement with the carriage assembly and is so positioned as to be movable within said gap in order to selectively interrupt light from the LED from reaching the phototransistor device.

In operation, the carriage is moved from the left-hand margin and accelerated until it reaches the constant print velocity. At a time sufficient to ensure that the carriage has been accelerated to the aforesaid constant velocity, the flag remains positioned between the LED and phototransistor and is not removed from the gap until the time that the constant print velocity is reached to thereby enable light from the LED to energize the phototransistor into conduction so as to generate a ready-to-print (RTPSW) signal which sets a bistable circuit where Q output is coupled to the reset input of gated oscillator means thereby enabling the gated oscillator means to begin running.

Prior to generation of the RTPSW signal, i.e. prior to the setting of the bistable flip-flop circuit, the Q output maintains the gated oscillator means in the disabled state so that no oscillator pulses are generated.

As soon as the enable level appears at the Q output, the timing circuit of the gated oscillator means begins charging and the first output pulse that is developed by the gated oscillator means is available so as to immediately initiate printing. The pulse generated at the beginning of each line will be identical for each line to insure registration of dot patterns between and among the lines of print. By simple adjustment of the R-C timing elements, the printer may be adjusted to print a line of any desired print and density. Due to the precision and exact repeatability of pulses generated by the gated oscillator means, pulses developed by one-shot multivibrators triggered by the leading and trailing edges of the gated oscillator means output pulses, are very simple to produce and are precisely aligned to enable printing of "full-step" and "half-step" dot patterns employed for printing 5 .times. 7 and 9 .times. 7 dot matrix characters. By employing optical sensing means for generating the RTPSW signal the "bounce" normally encountered in mechanical switches is totally eliminated thereby further assuring accurate alignment and registration of dot patterns within each print line and between and among print lines.

Carriage return is automatically provided for by utilization of a counter in conjunction with storage means, preferably in the form of a random access memory (RAM). As each code word representing a character to be printed is transferred to the printer, the counter is incremented by one count and the count in the counter is utilized to establish the address in RAM at which the code word is to be stored. The counter is preset depending upon the number of characters to be printed per line (for example, 80 or 132) so that when the counter reaches full capacity, a signal is provided to indicate that the characters for a full line have been loaded into RAM.

Thereafter, the carriage is moved in the print direction, the gated oscillator is triggered to begin running and clock pulses derived therefrom are utilized to advance the counter thereby applying the word at each address represented by the count of the counter to the character generator means to cause sequential printing of each dot column pattern.

When the counter reaches full count capacity, the gated oscillator is reset and a carriage return operation is performed in readiness for printing the next line of characters. The preloading of the counter may be done either manually during the selection of the "normal" or "compressed" characters or may be controlled remotely for either "normal" or "compressed" characters or for printing in either of the two aforementioned formats in cases where printing only a partial line of characters is desired.

It is therefore one object to provide a novel registration means for serial line printers and the like utilizing a gated oscillator for developing registration pulses.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a registration system for serial line printers in which a normally disabled gated oscillator is enabled through the employment of an optical sensing circuit to initiate printing only after the movable print head assembly has reached normal print speed.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a registration apparatus of the type described in the above objects wherein means are provided for simply and readily adjusting the operating frequency of the gated oscillator to provide for a commensurate change in character density.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide novel counter means utilized in combination with a random access memory for storing character codes, the counter serving the function of identifying the address of each character code as well as identifying when a full line of characters has been loaded into RAM and when a full line of characters has been printed to thereby reset the counter and initiate printing in the former case and to reset the counter and perform a carriage return operation in the latter case.

The above as well as other objects of the present invention will become apparent when reading the accompanying description and drawings in which:

FIGS. 1a and 1b are front and side views respectively showing the major components of a printer embodying the principles of the present invention.

FIGS. 1c and 1d are front views of the optical sensing apparatus at various stages in the operation of the printer which are useful in describing printer operations.

FIGS. 2 and 3 are schematics showing the electronic circuitry of the present invention, and

FIG. 2a is a waveform diagram useful in describing the registration means of FIG. 2.

The present invention is designed to be utilized with line printers of any type in which precision registration of characters or dot patterns is desired and more particularly is especially advantageous for use in line printers of the dot matrix type, for example, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,703,949. Dot matrix printers designed in accordance with the aforementioned patent typically utilize a print head assembly having print wires whose printing tips are vertically aligned and are adapted to impact an inked ribbon and a paper document by energization of print wire activating means, such as, for example, solenoids.

Typically and also as shown in FIGS. 1 and 1a herein, the arrangement 10 is such that the print head assembly is comprised of a housing 11 having solenoids S mounted at the rear end and having the print wires (not shown for purposes of simplicity) extending through the hollow housing and outwardly toward the front end or nose of the housing 11. By energizing the solenoids S, the print wires impact an inked ribbon 14 and a paper document 15 which is supported by a platen P.

The print head assembly 13 is mounted upon a carriage 12 capable of moving in the opposing directions 16 and 17. The carriage is guided for reciprocal movement by elongated rods 18a and 18b extending through openings in carriage 12.

The carriage assembly may typically be secured to an elongated belt, for example, a timing belt 19, which is entrained about a pair of pulleys 20 and 21. The output of motor M is selectively coupled to one of the two pulleys 20 and 21 by clutch assemblies 22 and 23 respectively. For example, by appropriate energization of clutches 22 and 23, clutch 23 is engaged to drive pulley 21 in the clockwise direction as shown by arrow 24, while clutch 22 is disengaged to enable pulley 20 to be free wheeling so as to move carriage 12 in the direction shown by arrow 16. Alternatively, clutch 23 may be energized so as to be disengaged and clutch 22 may be energized to be engaged whereupon pulley 20 is rotated in the direction shown by arrow 25 and pulley 21 is made free wheeling in order to drive the carriage assembly 12 in the direction shown by arrow 17. Obviously, other arrangements may be employed if desired, the arrangement described herein merely being one exemplary technique. For example, clutch assembly 22 may be eliminated and its function may be performed by a spring which is stretched as the carriage moves in the direction shown by arrow 16 to become charged and, by disengaging clutch assembly 23 the stretched spring takes over the movement of carriage 12 to perform a carriage return.

In order to start printing, the carriage is moved to the starting position so as to move the print wires to the left-hand margin which is the position occupied by the carriage as shown in FIG. 1a.

In this case, the opaque flag 30 which is mounted for movement with carriage 12, moves into the gap G between LED 31 and phototransistor 32 mounted upon support 33 and provided with electrical leads L for connection into the printer circuitry.

When the carriage assembly is moved to the lefthand position as shown in FIG. 1a, the opaque flag prevents light emitted from LED 31 from reaching phototransistor 32.

Considering the circuitry of FIG. 3, when the opaque flag is positioned therebetween, the emitter electrode 32a of phototransistor 32 is at logical zero. As is described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,703,949, binary data for printing of a line or partial line of characters is loaded into the printer shift register. As soon as the register is loaded, a signal is developed to energize the forward clutch, for example, clutch 23 causing the carriage to begin moving in the direction shown by arrow 16. Simultaneously therewith, the signal to the forward clutch is stored by a bistable circuit. Note, for example, the bistable circuit 149 shown in FIG. 9b of the above mentioned U.S. Patent. This signal indicates that printing is initiated and is typically referred to as the CIP signal. When the forward clutch turns on, the signal CIP goes to a logical one and the carriage starts to move. The carriage moves from a standstill position and is accelerated preferably toward a constant print velocity. Eventually, the opaque flag 30 moves far enough so that the beam of light is no longer interrupted. When this happens the phototransistor 32 is activated causing the signal RTPSW to go to a logical one. In the logical one state, a clock signal is applied to the clock input 36a of a bistable flip-flop of the B-latch type which is adapted to receive the CIP signal at the D input 36b to clock this level into the bistable flip-flop, causing the Q output 36c to go to logical zero. This level is inverted by inverter 37 whose output, which is identified as the signal RESET goes to a logical one. With this signal in the logical one state, gated oscillator 38 is turned on and the signal OSC immediately begins to generate pulses at a frequency which is adjusted by the potentiometer 39. In one preferred embodiment, the OSC signal operates at a frequency of 360 pulses per second with a 50% duty cycle for printing 60 characters per second. The positive going edge of the signal OSC is employed to simultaneously fire one-shot multivibrators 40 and 41. One-shot multivibrator 40 is coupled to the oscillator signal through gate 42 so that the positive going edge of the signal OSC triggers one-shot multivibrator 40 to generate a positive going pulse identified as the signal STB (strobe). See FIG. 3a, 2a.

The negative going edge of the OSC signal is applied to gate 43 to trigger one-shot multivibrator 41 and generate a positive going pulse identified as the signal DLYSTB (delay strobe) which is employed to fire half-step dots. FIG. 2a shows the OSC, STB and DLYSTB waveforms.

Thus, as the printer carriage moves at a constant speed, vertical dot patterns are printed upon the occurrence of each STB signal in the case where 5 .times. 7 dot matrix characters are printed and vertically aligned dot patterns are printed upon the occurrence of each STB (full step dots) and DLYSTB (half-step dots) pulses to print 9 .times. 7 dot matrix characters.

When printing is completed, a signal PRIME is generated and this signal is applied to the clear input 36d of bistable flip-flop 36 (as well as other circuitry not shown herein) to "prime" all of the circuitry of the printer in readiness for printing the next line of print. When flip-flop 36 is cleared, its Q output 36c goes high causing the output of inverter 37 (signal RESET) to go to logical zero so as to instantaneously turn off gated oscillator 38. This causes the signal OSC to go immediately to a logical zero preventing the signals STB and DLYSTB from being generated so as to prevent any printing from erroneously occurring.

When a PRIME signal occurs, the reverse clutch, for example, clutch 22, is energized and the forward clutch is deenergized causing the signal CIP to go to zero. The energization of the reverse clutch moves the carriage assembly in the direction shown by arrow 17 (FIG. 1a) so that the carriage eventually moves to the position shown in FIG. 2a whereupon the opaque flag 30 just begins to move between LED 31 and phototransistor 32.

Once the carriage moves just beyond the position shown in FIG. 1c, the light emitted from LED 31 is prevented from reaching the phototransistor 32 causing the signal RTPSW to go to logical zero. The signal RTPSW is utilized as one input to the reverse clutch enable gate causing the reverse clutch to be deenergized thereby enabling the carriage 12 to coast to a stop whereupon the final position of the carriage is as shown in FIG. 1a.

This sequence is repeated for each successive line printed by the printer.

The advantage of utilizing the optical switch arrangement (i.e. LED 31, phototransistor 32 and opaque flag 30) is that the bounce occurring in mechanical switches is eliminated and the optical switch, for all practical purposes opens and closes exactly at the same spot, which is not possible with mechanical switches.

The other advantage of the present invention is that dot column spacing can be adjusted to any desired width merely by adjustment of the potentiometer 39 to change the frequency of gated oscillator 38. For example, 132 characters can easily be printed in 80 columns, which format may be considered to be the "compressed" character format while the 80 character format may be considered to be "normal" character format.

Also, since the signal DLYSTB is fired from the negative edge of OSC, only one adjustment of potentiometer 38 has to be made and DLYSTB automatically takes care of itself. The oscillator employed herein is of a design which is very stable over temperature and can be accurately and abruptly reset. The time between the moment when the gated oscillator is turned on until the first output pulse is exactly the same time for every operation assuring, together with the optical switch arrangement, proper print alignment from line to line.

The detailed arrangement of the gated oscillator is such that when the reset input RESET input goes to logical one, Q1 causes transistor Q2 to turn off enabling capacitor C1, which forms part of the timing circuit together with potentiometer 39, to begin charging towards +5 volts. When the level at 46a of comparator 46 reaches the reference level at the input 46b of comparator 46, bistable flip-flop 47 turns Q2 on and drives output stage 48 whereupon C1 begins discharging through potentiometer 39 until it reaches a level at the input 45b of comparator 45 which equals a reference level at input 45a of comparator 45 whereupon the output 45c of comparator 45 resets bistable flip-flop 47 causing transistor Q2 to be turned off and altering the level applied to output stage 48. This cycle is repeated continuously so long as the RESET signal remains at logical one. As soon as the RESET signal goes to logical zero, the collector electrode of Q1 is maintained at the level V.sub.ref, which level is applied to its emitter preventing the output of flip-flop 47 from affecting output stage 48 and maintaining Q2 in a non-conducting state.

As further shown in FIG. 2, an additional potentiometer 39' may be connected in series with resistor R4 and switch SW1, the series branch being connected in parallel across the fixed end terminals of potentiometer 39. Potentiometers 39 and 39' may be "factory adjusted" to provide the precise timing for printing "normal" and "compressed" character formats. By operating switch SW1 between the closed and open positions, the "compressed" and "normal" characters may thereby be respectively selected.

FIG. 3 shows the manner in which the printer may be adapted to identify the end of a line of print regardless of whether it be a full line or partial line. As shown in FIG. 3, 8-bit binary words are applied to the inputs 50a-50h respectively of a static memory device which may, for example, be a 4039 of the random access memory (RAM) type. The inputs 50j-50r of the RAM are applied to selected outputs of counter 51 which, in the example given, is adapted to be capable of counting from 0-255. Thus, outputs 51a-51h are respectively coupled to inputs 50j-50r of the RAM 50.

The inputs 51j-51r of counter 51 are selectively coupled between a +5 volt bus 52 and a bus 53 maintained at ground potential, by appropriate setting of the switches SW2-SW9. The manner of operation of the circuit is as follows:

Let it be assumed that it is desired to print the "normal" character format which for purposes of this example will be considered to be 80 characters per line. Switches SW2-SW9 are set so as to set the counter at a starting count of 175, the switches being arranged in the dotted line position.

Data is applied to the printer circuitry from a computer or other communications source and each binary word is applied to inputs 50a-50h. At that time a clock pulse CLKTB1 developed under control of the data source is applied to the input of gate 55 to trigger one-shot multivibrator 56 and enable gate 57 to apply a pulse to input 51t of counter 51 thereby advancing the count from 175 to 176. When the reverse state of the clock signal, i.e. CLKTB1 is generated, the read-in enable line 50t of RAM 50 is triggered causing the data word appearing at that time at inputs 50a-50h to be read-in at a memory address determined by the count in counter 51 which is applied to inputs 50j-50r of RAM 50 by outputs 51a-51h respectively of counter 51. In the example given the address location is equivalent to decimal "175". As each new word appears at input 50a-50h, the clocking arrangement recited hereinbefore is repeated until the counter 51 reaches its full capacity at which time its output 51w is enabled causing gate 59 to develop the dummy character signal DMC which indicates that a full line of 80 characters is loaded in RAM 50. At this time printing may occur whereupon the forward clutch is energized, the signal CIP is developed and the carriage is brought into motion. The CIP signal is used to enable gate 62 to reset counter 51. Clocking now occurs under control of the signal CLKTB2 which is generated by the signal OSC. Each data character code is thus read-out from memory and applied to the character generator for converting the data code into dot patterns which are then utilized to selectively enable appropriate solenoid S of the printer assembly which are further triggered at precisely the proper time by the STB and/or DLYSTB signals.

As soon as the counter 51 reaches full capacity, the output 51w, together with the CIP signal, operates gate 64 to prevent any further character codes to be read out of RAM 50. These signals also cause the generation of the signal PRIME to reset counter 51 through gate 65 and inverter 66 and to instantly turn off gated oscillator 38.

The arrangement described herein may also be operated remotely by applying signals to the inputs 51j-51r of counter 51 representative of a starting count which may be any number other than a full line of 132 characters or a full line of 80 characters. The advantage of using the RAM 50 resides in the fact that the RAM need never be cleared since write-in of new data automatically clears any address location.

Although there has been described a preferred embodiment of this novel invention, many variations and modifications will now be apparent to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the invention is to be limited, not by the specific disclosure herein, but only by the appending claims.