A high speed color printer for use in an office environment, typically as a networked printer. The printer provides high speed (approximately 74 pages per minute: 37 double sided sheets per minute), high printing resolution (800 dpi) full color printer which incorporates electronic collation and local storage of 1,000 or more rasterized pages. The invention utilizes advances in high resolution pagewidth drop on demand print heads. Also incorporated is a new image compression and real-time expansion system for electronic collation and local document storage. The image resolution and compression quality is specified to achieve an image quality comparable with current magazine and brochure printing using color offset presses. A high speed color commercial printing system uses continuous roll media with a print speed of approximately 148 A4 pages per minute, electronic collation and local storage of 10,000 or more pages.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
Reference is made to my commonly assigned, U.S. patent applications: Ser. No. 08/701,021 entitled CMOS PROCESS COMPATIBLE FABRICATION OF PRINT HEADS filed Aug. 21, 1996; Ser. No. 08/733,711 entitled CONSTRUCTION AND MANUFACTURING PROCESS FOR DROP ON DEMAND PRINT HEADS WITH NOZZLE HEATERS filed Oct. 17, 1996; Ser. No. 08/734,822 entitled A MODULAR PRINT HEAD ASSEMBLY filed Oct. 22, 1996; Ser. No. 08/736,537 entitled PRINT HEAD CONSTRUCTIONS FOR REDUCED ELECTROSTATIC INTERACTION BETWEEN PRINTED DROPLETS filed Oct. 24, 1996; Ser. No. 08/750,320 entitled NOZZLE DUPLICATION FOR FAULT TOLERANCE IN INTEGRATED PRINTING HEADS and Ser. No. 08/750,312 entitled HIGH CAPACITY COMPRESSED DOCUMENT IMAGE STORAGE FOR DIGITAL COLOR PRINTERS both filed Nov. 26, 1996; Ser. No. 08/753,718 entitled NOZZLE PLACEMENT IN MONOLITHIC DROP-ON-DEMAND PRINT HEADS and Ser. No. 08/750,606 entitled A COLOR VIDEO PRINTER AND A PHOTO CD SYSTEM WITH INTEGRATED PRINTER both filed on Nov. 27, 1996; Ser. No. 08/750,438 entitled A LIQUID INK PRINTING APPARATUS AND SYSTEM, Ser. No. 08/750,599 entitled COINCIDENT DROP SELECTION, DROP SEPARATION PRINTING METHOD AND SYSTEM, Ser. No. 08/750,435 entitled MONOLITHIC PRINT HEAD STRUCTURE AND A MANUFACTURING PROCESS THEREFOR USING ANISTROPIC WET ETCHING, Ser. No. 08/750,436 entitled POWER SUPPLY CONNECTION FOR MONOLITHIC PRINT HEADS, Ser. No. 08/750,437 entitled MODULAR DIGITAL PRINTING, Ser. No. 08/750,439 entitled A HIGH SPEED DIGITAL FABRIC PRINTER, Ser. No. 08/750,763 entitled A COLOR PHOTOCOPIER USING A DROP ON DEMAND INK JET PRINTING SYSTEM, Ser. No. 08/765,756 entitled PHOTOGRAPH PROCESSING AND COPYING SYSTEMS, Ser. No. 08/750,646 entitled FAX MACHINE WITH CONCURRENT DROP SELECTION AND DROP SEPARATION INK JET PRINTING, Ser. No. 08/759,774 entitled FAULT TOLERANCE IN HIGH VOLUME PRINTING PRESSES, Ser. No. 08/750,429 entitled INTEGRATED DRIVE CIRCUITRY IN DROP ON DEMAND PRINT HEADS, Ser. No. 08/750,433 entitled HEATER POWER COMPENSATION FOR TEMPERATURE IN THERMAL PRINTING SYSTEMS, Ser. No. 08/750,640 entitled HEATER POWER COMPENSATION FOR THERMAL LAG IN THERMAL PRINTING SYSTEMS, Ser. No. 08/750,650 entitled DATA DISTRIBUTION IN MONOLITHIC PRINT HEADS, and Ser. No. 08/750,642 entitled PRESSURIZABLE LIQUID INK CARTRIDGE FOR COINCIDENT FORCES PRINTERS all filed Dec. 3, 1996; Ser. No. 08/750,647 entitled MONOLITHIC PRINTING HEADS AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES THEREFOR, Ser. No. 08/750,604 entitled INTEGRATED FOUR COLOR PRINT HEADS, Ser. No. 08/750,605 entitled A SELF-ALIGNED CONSTRUCTION AND MANUFACTURING PROCESS FOR MONOLITHIC PRINT HEADS, Ser. No. 08/682,603 entitled A COLOR PLOTTER USING CONCURRENT DROP SELECTION AND DROP SEPARATION INK JET PRINTING TECHNOLOGY, Ser. No. 08/750,603 entitled A NOTEBOOK COMPUTER WITH INTEGRATED CONCURRENT DROP SELECTION AND DROP SEPARATION COLOR PRINTING SYSTEM, Ser. No. 08/765,130 entitled INTEGRATED FAULT TOLERANCE IN PRINTING MECHANISMS; Ser. No. 08/750,431 entitled BLOCK FAULT TOLERANCE IN INTEGRATED PRINTING HEADS, Ser. No. 08/750,607 entitled FOUR LEVEL INK SET FOR BI-LEVEL COLOR PRINTING, Ser. No. 08/750,430 entitled A NOZZLE CLEARING PROCEDURE FOR LIQUID INK PRINTING, Ser. No. 08/750,600 entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ACCURATE CONTROL OF TEMPERATURE PULSES IN PRINTING HEADS, Ser. No. 08/750,608 entitled A PORTABLE PRINTER USING A CONCURRENT DROP SELECTION AND DROP SEPARATION PRINTING SYSTEM, and Ser. No. 08/750,602 entitled IMPROVEMENTS IN IMAGE HALFTONING all filed Dec. 4, 1996; Ser. No. 08/765,127 entitled PRINTING METHOD AND APPARATUS EMPLOYING ELECTROSTATIC DROP SEPARATION, and Ser. No. 08/765,035 entitled HEATER POWER COMPENSATION FOR PRINTING LOAD IN THERMAL PRINTING SYSTEMS all filed Dec. 5, 1996; Ser. No. 08/765,036 entitled APPARATUS FOR PRINTING MULTIPLE DROP SIZES AND FABRICATION THEREOF, Ser. No. 08/765,017 entitled HEATER STRUCTURE AND FABRICATION PROCESS FOR MONOLITHIC PRINT HEADS, Ser. No. 08/750,772 entitled DETECTION OF FAULTY ACTUATORS IN PRINTING HEADS, Ser. No. 08/765,037 entitled PAGE IMAGE AND FAULT TOLERANCE CONTROL APPARATUS FOR PRINTING SYSTEMS all filed Dec. 9, 1996; and Ser. No. 08/765,038 entitled CONSTRUCTIONS AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES FOR THERMALLY ACTIVATED PRINT HEADS filed Dec. 10, 1996.
A wet-dye hard copy apparatus includes a scanning carriage selectively movable along a scan axis and a plurality of ink-jet writing instruments on the carriage for printing on adjacent print media transported along an orthogonal axis. The writing instruments are offset a predetermined distance in the direction of medial travel to increase throughput and to allow simultaneous multiple page printing.
A method for selecting a device personality is presented comprising registering each of a plurality of revisions of one or more accessible personalities, wherein each personality is configured to convert incoming data from a particular language to a low-level data stream. Once registered, appropriate personality revisions are dynamically selected to convert the incoming data, while retaining all registered revisions of the one or more personalities for subsequent use.
The present invention provides a modular imager having a service station assembly with a customized interface board, and also having a cartridge assembly with a customized rasterizer board and a customized pen driver board. The customized interface board has a controller that responds to an image signal having any one of a number of different standard interfaces, for providing an interface board image signal. The customized rasterizer board has a programmable logic device (i.e. firmware), responds to the interface board image signal, rasterizes the interface board image signal into a bitmap, and provides a rasterizer board image signal. The customized pen driver board has a programmable logic device (i.e. firmware), responds to the rasterizer board image signal, remaps the rasterizer board image signal, and provides a pen driver board signal.
A printer is provided that stores raw data. Printing is performed with the material data merged together in accordance with a print instruction from a print instruction terminal. The material data is rendered in advance and then stored in a compressed form. However, part of the material data stored in the compressed form is decompressed to its original size and stored in a decompressed form. This allows a large amount of material data to be stored in a compressed form while also allowing the stored decompressed material data to be immediately used. As such, the time required to decompress frequently used material data is eliminated. This advances the printing start time to allow high-speed printing.
A continuous ink jet printing system using asymmetrical heating of the fluid in which the nozzle bore (46, 76, 78) of the printhead preferably has a non-circular opening. The nozzle bore (46, 76, 78) has reflection symmetry about the long axis of its cross-section and may be, for example, elliptical or rectangular. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the nozzle bore (46, 76, 78) has an aspect ratio greater than unity, wherein the aspect ratio is defined as the ratio of the long axis length to the short axis length. A heater (50, 50', 50") used to generate deflection of the fluid exiting the nozzle bore (46, 76, 78) generally conforms to the perimeter of the nozzle bore (46, 76, 78) such that the heated portion is along the long dimension of the nozzle bore (46, 76, 78).
