THOMAS W NELSON
Pharmacy at Bignonia St, Melbourne, FL

5025398, Jun 18, 1991

May 21, 1990

7/526505

Thomas C. Nelson - Melbourne FL

Storage Technology Corporation - Louisville CO

G60K 1500

364519

The above described problems are solved and a technical advance achieved in the field by the data stream independent printer of the present invention. This printer is a nonimpact printer that is compatible with host processors that are programmed to operate line printers and host processors that are programmed to operate nonimpact printers. This compatibility is achieved by the use of conversion apparatus that emulates the operation of a line printer, such as a high speed band printer, when the associated host processor is programmed to operate high speed line printers. The conversion apparatus responds to the line printer control signals produced by the host processor to control the operation of the nonimpact printer. This conversion apparatus stores a plurality of character set definitions, overlays, copy modifications and setups on a disk drive memory located in the printer system so that the band definition information provided by the host can be translated into print character generation control signals. In operation, the host processor transmits a band identification data to the printer system, which data is used to retrieve from the disk memory to form and format of the character set that is available to the host processor.

4924275, May 8, 1990

May 12, 1989

7/351429

Thomas C. Nelson - Melbourne FL

Storage Technology Corporation - Louisville CO

B41J 1300

355319

The printer switchable between simplex and duplex mode of operation on a page by page basis makes use of a single simplex print engine. Duplex printing is accomplished by the reinsertion of a simplex printed page into the input of the print engine in a flipped mode so the other side of the printed page can be printed by the print engine. This printer also includes apparatus that dynamically switches the operation of the printer from duplex to simplex mode of operation when the printing commands input from the associated processor indicates that the other side of a simplex printed page is a blank page. This enables the print engine to eject the simplex printed page directly to the output paper bin without having to cycle this simplex printed page back through the print engine even though there are no characters to be printed thereon. This blank page suppression or simplex/duplex mode switching thereby increases the throughput of this printer system by avoiding the unnecessary delays occasioned by cycling a page of paper through the print engine when nothing is to printed thereon.