 |
Description  |
|
|
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a system for controlling a reproduction machine,
and more particularly, to a method for changing the control for alternate
display of alternate languages of such reproduction machines.
As reproduction machines such as copiers and printers become more complex
and versatile in features and capability, the machine software control
becomes much more complex. Yet, modifications and upgrades to the control
often become more desirable or necessary to refine and adjust old features
or add new features. In addition, many of the machines are multi-national
and include a user interface that must not only be capable of displaying
text and graphics, but, in particular, be capable of displaying graphics
in multiple languages.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,979,729 discloses an index store provided to translate
index addresses, derived from input instructions, into start addresses for
microprogram routines. If microprogram routines have to be re-ordered
within the microprogram store, it is only necessary to modify the contents
of the index store, and further modifications to the microprogram unit, or
to the input instructions, are not necessary.
The prior art also discloses various means to store or load control data
into a system. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,711,560 discloses a copier
which functions according to a sequence control program stored on floppy
disk and loaded by a user. The floppy disk can also contain a diagnostic
program to facilitate maintenance, and further act as a key to prevent
unauthorized use of the copier.
Japanese Patent No. 61-196265 to Watanabe discloses a copying machine
having a disk drive for accepting a disk which stores language
information. When the disk is loaded, display message information in
various languages is provided on an operator interface display. U.S. Pat.
No. 4,699,501 to Watanabe et al. claims priority from, inter alia, the
'265 Japanese reference and is closely related.
Japanese Patent No. 61-190352 to Watanabe discloses disk means for
inputting operation guidance data to a copying machine.
A difficulty with the prior art techniques is the limitation in being able
to change control code, and, in particular, the inability to provide a
simple method to change the code to provide alternate language displays at
the user interface. It would be particularly advantageous to be able to
change the language not only at the manufacturing site, but also to make
the change to the control code in machines already installed in the field.
It would be desirable, therefore, to be able to easily re-install or
replace the code controlling the specific language displayed at a user
interface. It would also be desirable to selectively install customer
language options in the field as required and to be able to provide a
simple means for switching language displays during or after installation
of the machine at the customer site.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide a new and
improved mechanism to allow the option of selecting either a primary or
secondary language at a user interface and to allow changing either the
primary or secondary language to an alternative language available for the
various messages and instructions at the user interface. Further
advantages of the present invention will become apparent as the following
description proceeds and the features characterizing the invention will be
pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part
of this specification.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Briefly, the present invention is concerned with an image processing
apparatus having image processing means for forming an image, a controller
including a rigid disk having a plurality of system files for controlling
the image processing means, and in particular, to the method of providing
both a primary and a secondary language on the rigid disk and to the
method of changing the system files to be able to change either the
primary or secondary language or both on the rigid disk to another
language, and to provide the operator with the option of selecting either
the primary or secondary language as the medium for the display messages
and prompts by providing the language requirements on a floppy disk,
identifying the specific files of the control to be altered to produce the
language requirements, loading the floppy disk into a floppy disk drive,
and transferring the language requirements to the rigid disk.
For a better understanding of the present invention, reference may be had
to the accompanying drawings wherein the same reference numerals have been
applied to like parts and wherein:
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is an isometric view of an illustrative reproduction machine
incorporating the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic elevational view depicting various operating
components and subsystems of the machine shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the operating control systems and memory for
the machine shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is an illustration of floppy disk memory allocation;
FIG. 5 is an illustration of RAM page memory allocation; and
FIGS. 6A, 6B, 6C are flow charts of the control upgrading feature in
accordance with the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
For a general understanding of the features of the present invention,
reference is made to the drawings. Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, there is
shown an electrophotographic reproduction machine 5 composed of a
plurality of programmable components and subsystems which cooperate to
carry out the copying or printing job programmed through a touch dialogue
User Interface (U.I.).
Machine 5 employs a photoconductive belt 10. Belt 10 is entrained about
stripping roller 14, tensioning roller 16, idler rollers 18, and drive
roller 20. Drive roller 20 is rotated by a motor coupled thereto by
suitable means such as a belt drive. As roller 20 rotates, it advances
belt 10 in the direction of arrow 12 through the various processing
stations disposed about the path of movement thereof.
Initially, the photoconductive surface of belt 10 passes through charging
station A where two corona generating devices, indicated generally by the
reference numerals 22 and 24 charge photoconductive belt 10 to a
relatively high, substantially uniform potential. Next, the charged
photoconductive belt is advanced through imaging station B. At imaging
station B, a document handling unit 26 sequentially feeds documents from a
stack of documents in a document stacking and holding tray into registered
position on platen 28. A pair of Xenon flash lamps 30 mounted in the
optics cavity illuminate the document on platen 28, the light rays
reflected from the document being focused by lens 32 onto belt 10 to
expose and record an electrostatic latent image on photoconductive belt 10
which corresponds to the informational areas contained within the document
currently on platen 28. After imaging, the document is returned to the
document tray via a simplex path when either a simplex copy or the first
pass of a duplex copy is being made or via a duplex path when a duplex
copy is being made.
The electrostatic latent image recorded on photoconductive belt 10 is
developed at development station C by a magnetic brush developer unit 34
having three developer rolls 36, 38 and 40. A paddle wheel 42 picks up
developer material and delivers it to the developer rolls 36, 38.
Developer roll 40 is a cleanup roll while a magnetic roll 44 is provided
to remove any carrier granules adhering to belt 10.
Following development, the developed image is transferred at transfer
station D to a copy sheet. There, the photoconductive belt 10 is exposed
to a pre-transfer light from a lamp (not shown) to reduce the attraction
between photoconductive belt 10 and the toner powder image. Next, a corona
generating device 46 charges the copy sheet to the proper magnitude and
polarity so that the copy sheet is tacked to photoconductive belt 10 and
the toner powder image attracted from the photoconductive belt to the copy
sheet. After transfer, corona generator 48 charges the copy sheet to the
opposite polarity to detack the copy sheet from belt 10.
Following transfer, a conveyor 50 advances the copy sheet bearing the
transferred image to fusing station E where a fuser assembly, indicated
generally by the reference numeral 52 permanently affixes the toner powder
image to the copy sheet. Preferably, fuser assembly 52 includes a heated
fuser roller 54 and a pressure roller 56 with the powder image on the copy
sheet contacting fuser roller 54.
After fusing, the copy sheets are fed through a decurler 58 to remove any
curl. Forwarding rollers 60 then advance the sheet via duplex turn roll 62
to gate 64 which guides the sheet to either finishing station F or to
duplex tray 66, the latter providing an intermediate or buffer storage for
those sheets that have been printed on one side and on which an image will
be subsequently printed on the second, opposed side thereof. The sheets
are stacked in duplex tray 66 face down on top of one another in the order
in which they are copied.
To complete duplex copying, the simplex sheets in tray 66 are fed, in
seriatim, by bottom feeder 68 back to transfer station D via conveyor 70
and rollers 72 for transfer of the second toner powder image to the
opposed sides of the copy sheets. The duplex sheet is then fed through the
same path as the simplex sheet to be advanced to finishing station F.
Copy sheets are supplied from a secondary tray 74 by sheet feeder 76 or
from the auxiliary tray 78 by sheet feeder 80. Sheet feeders 76, 80 are
friction retard feeders utilizing a feed belt and take-away rolls to
advance successive copy sheets to transport 70 which advances the sheets
to rolls 72 and then to transfer station D.
A high capacity feeder 82 is the primary source of copy sheets. Tray 84 of
feeder 82, which is supported on an elevator 86 for up and down movement,
has a vacuum feed belt 88 to feed successive uppermost sheets from the
stack of sheets in tray 84 to a take away drive roll 90 and idler rolls
92. Rolls 90, 92 guide the sheet onto transport 93 which in cooperation
with idler roll 95 and rolls 72 move the sheet to transfer station station
D.
After transfer station D, photoconductive belt 10 passes beneath corona
generating device 94 which charges any residual toner particles remaining
on belt 10 to the proper polarity. Thereafter, a precharge erase lamp (not
shown), located inside photoconductive belt 10, discharges the
photoconductive belt in preparation for the next charging cycle. Residual
particles are removed from belt 10 at cleaning station G by an
electrically biased cleaner brush 96 and two de-toning rolls 98 and 100.
The various functions of machine are regulated by a controller which
preferably comprises one or more programmable microprocessors. The
controller provides a comparison count of the copy sheets, the number of
documents being recirculated, the number of copy sheets selected by the
operator, time delays, and jam corrections. Programming and operating
control over machine is accomplished through the User Interface. Operating
and control information is stored in a suitable memory and loaded into
controller and job programming instructions are loaded into the controller
through the User Interface. Conventional sheet path sensors or switches
may be utilized to keep track of the position of the documents and the
copy sheets. In addition, the controller regulates the various positions
of the gates depending upon the mode of operation selected.
With reference to FIG. 3, the memory includes a hard or rigid disk drive
115A for receiving suitable rigid memory disks and a floppy disk drive
115B for receiving suitable floppy memory disks, both disk drives being
electrically connected to Controller 114, the Controller 114 including RAM
114A and ROM 114B. In a preferred embodiment, the rigid disks are two
platter, four head disks with a formatted storage capacity of
approximately 20 megabytes. The floppy disks are 3.5 inch, dual sided
micro disks with a formatted storage capacity of approximately 720
kilobytes. In normal machine operation, all of the control code and screen
display information for the machine is loaded from the rigid disk at
machine power up. Alternatively, all of the control code and screen
display information for the machine can be loaded from a floppy disk at
machine power up using the floppy disk drive built into the machine.
Suitable display 213A is also connected to Controller 114 as well as a
shared line system bus 302.
The shared line system bus 302 interconnects a plurality of core printed
wiring boards including an input station board 304, a marking imaging
board 306, a paper handling board 308, and a finisher/binder board 310.
Each of the core printed wiring boards is connected to local input/output
(I/O) devices through a local bus. For example, the input station board
304 is connected to digital input/output boards 312A and 312B and servo
board 312C via local bus 314. The marking imaging board 306 is connected
to analog/digital/analog boards 316A, 316B, digital input/output board
316C, and stepper control board 316D through local bus 318. In a similar
manner, the paper handling board 308 connects digital input/output boards
320A, B and C to local bus 322, and finisher/binder board 310 connects
digital input/output boards 324A, B and C to local bus 326. For further
details of the control, reference may be had to U.S. Ser. No. 07/164,365
filed Mar. 4, 1988 and incorporated herein.
To load the control code from a floppy disk, the floppy disk is loaded into
the floppy disk drive 115B. With reference to FIG. 4, there is an
illustration of the memory allocation on a floppy disk loaded into the
floppy disk drive 115B. A header sector or boot sector 400 is allocated to
the location of that portion of the floppy disk that is initially read. A
plurality of programs or code segments are also allocated on the floppy
disk as illustrated by program I-402 with its header sector 404, Program
II-406 with its header sector 408, and Program III-410 with its header
412. The header sectors 404, 408 and 412 contain information concerning
where to load the file in RAM 114A and at what page in memory to load, if
it is booted.
Typically, the random access memory is segmented into a plurality of RAM
pages, as illustrated in FIG. 5, and the read in code is located or stored
at a specific location on a specific RAM page. By way of illustration,
Program I-402 from the floppy disk is illustrated as being stored in RAM
page 1 beginning at the address XXXX and Program III-410 from the floppy
disk is illustrated as being allocated to the RAM page 2 beginning at
address YYYY. It should be noted that Program II-406 on the floppy disk is
assumed to be a program that is indicated in the header 408 not to be
booted into RAM 114A.
It should also be noted that even though various portions of systems
software to operate the reproduction machine are being loaded from the
floppy disk onto the RAM 114A of controller 114, it is necessary to have a
small portion of the systems software residing in the controller 114 as
illustrated by ROM 114B in FIG. 3. Thus, when the machine is initially
turned on, the portion of systems software in ROM 114B initiates the
operation of the controller 114 to initiate the first necessary booting
operations, i.e. the systems control residing in ROM 114B at start-up
begins the operation of the floppy disk drive, and reads at least the
initial boot sector 400 on the outer edge of a floppy disk.
The boot sector 400 also known as the boot record generally resides as the
very first sector on the disk. This boot sector contains the information
about the disk, specifically, the logic of how to load bootable files. In
addition, a file directory contains information identifying which files on
the disk are to be booted from the disk to RAM, and a file header for each
file contains the location in RAM where the file is to be loaded. That is,
the boot sector contains the minimal amount of code, called a boot loader,
required to search the floppy disk directory for those files that are
directly loadable into RAM and instructs the boot ROM 114B to load these
particular files into designated memory locations or segments in RAM 114A
identified by the file header. At the completion of loading all the
directly loadable files, the boot sector 400 then instructs the boot ROM
114B to verify that all the segments loaded into RAM are a functional
system. That is, the boot sector instructs the boot ROM 114B to determine
that the programs and code that have been loaded into RAM are sufficient
to be able to control and operate the machine 15. If the loaded software
or system is valid as determined by the pattern file checksum routine, the
boot ROM 114B then starts the system operating by jumping to a fixed
address.
The file programs I and III as illustrated at 402 and 410 which are to be
boot loaded into RAM consist of two parts. The first part is the header
record 404 and 412 which tells the boot loader 114B where the files are to
be loaded into memory. The second part is an actual binary memory image.
The data is read from the floppy disk in 512 byte sectors. The header
sector 404, 412 consists of a 512 byte (1 sector) data block which
contains a multiple byte pattern, the size of the file in sectors, and a
page and address of where the file is to be loaded into memory. The
remaining 498 bytes of data can be used to contain file configuration
information.
The machine 5 utilizes a read/write mass storage device, i.e. a rigid disk,
to store the machine software and data. With the mass storage device comes
the capability to easily read, write and modify files on the device. The
files that constitute the system software control are stored on many
remote storage devices such as the core printed wiring boards and I/O
devices and must be gathered together to build a particular change of
software control code or upgrade. This leads to the problem of gathering
and managing the many files and the version numbers and attributes
associated with those files while still providing the capability to easily
update any one or a group of the files in the system for an upgrade. A
mechanism was needed to manage the many different files, their associated
versions and the update of these files. This mechanism also needed to
provide a means of determining that the correct files were written to the
mass storage device for a particular upgrade as well as a means to
determine if any of the files had been corrupted or modified during the
use of the system and to verify the configuration of the system at any
point in time.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there has been
implemented a Disk Organization and Configuration (DOC) file. Associated
with many of the files on the mass storage device are attributes such as
file type, file size and checksum. All of this information was used to
create the DOC file, thereby defining the configuration of the system.
This information is used to manage and build the file structure for the
mass storage device. After the files have been written to the mass storage
device, the DOC file is used to verify the configuration of the system.
The verification of the system is facilitated by making the DOC file one
of the files written to the mass storage device. This then provides a
means to indicate what configuration that device should be in.
The DOC file provides a mechanism for collecting and managing the
information about a particular system configuration, the identity and
location of the remote file name and location of all of the files to be
placed on the mass storage device, and the unique configuration
information about each of the files including file size, file name to file
ID mapping, file type and checksum. By making the DOC file one of the
files specified within the DOC file, it becomes an integral portion of the
released file structure and as such provides a valuable component of the
installed software configuration. The DOC file allows programs to be
written which automatically collects the files from their remote location
and retrieves them into a central facility, verify that the files
retrieved are actually of the desired configuration and transfers the
files directly to the mass storage device or generates them into a
software installation kit which would be used to transfer the files to a
mass storage device installed in a copier at a customer location. When the
DOC file and the files contained within it are transformed into a software
installation kit (a collection of floppies instead of being put directly
on the mass storage device), the contents of the DOC file are translated
into two binary images. These binary images speed up processing during the
software installation process (placing the contents of the floppies onto
the mass storage device) and the configuration verification process. The
two binary files which are generated are called the LU table and the LU to
FID table. The LU table contains the information detailing the software
configuration revision IDs, and information about file group revision
numbers and types, and desired placement of the files on the mass storage
device. The LU to FID table provides information about how the files are
organized in the software installation kit, and provides information which
is specific to the individual files such as file size, file type, and file
checksum.
In general, the control code and information loaded into the machine from
the rigid disk can be easily modified because it is stored in a central
location on a media that has read/write access. In accordance with another
aspect of the present invention, changing the data or control code, known
as an upgrade, can be done by modifying the contents of the current rigid
disk by transferring data from one or more floppy disks onto the rigid
disk using the floppy disk drive in the machine.
A full upgrade consists of completely rewriting the entire contents of the
rigid disk. An upgrade kit will contain all the information required to
perform a full upgrade of all of the information on the rigid disk. The
availability of the complete software set will allow the service rep to
rewrite the entire disk in the event that information on the disk is not
valid. The first disk of the upgrade kit is a bootable floppy which will
contain the software necessary to perform the upgrade function and
information about the contents of the upgrade (version numbers, files
sizes, etc.) to determine which floppies will be required to complete the
upgrade. The remaining floppies will contain the actual data that will be
written to the rigid disk.
Floppy disks are broken into three categories, bootable, software upgrade
or writable/readable data storage. Bootable floppies are floppies which
contain information that the Boot ROM can use to load the user interface.
This allows the service rep to run special software which is not stored on
the rigid disk, such as the software upgrade tool. The bootable floppy may
also contain software upgrade information and/or writable data storage
files. Software upgrade floppies are floppies which contain the
information to be loaded onto the rigid disk, including control code,
frame information and language information. Writable data storage floppies
can be used to save the NVM values for one or more machines. Writable data
storage floppies can also be used to hold field data collection
information.
The machine 5 is a multi-national machine with the user interface capable
of displaying both graphics and textual messages. It is required to
display text in two different languages (designated the primary and
secondary languages). The textual (language) information is stored on the
rigid disk and the user the capability to select between the primary or
secondary languages that can be installed on a machine.
The upgrade | | |
