1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to art for a printer connectable to a network and to a controller therefor. More particularly, the present invention relates to art for a multitask program that is executed by this controller.
2. Description of the Related Art
Pursuant to the advancement in network technology in recent years, printers have come to be connected to a network via a network interface and shared by a plurality of host computers.
This network interface is equipped with a dedicated processor and a buffer, and communicates with the host computers by a specific protocol, thereby receiving printing job data and storing them in the buffer. The controller connected to the printer unit is also equipped with a processor, and prints by receiving image data stored in the network interface buffer whenever necessary, while generating image data and issuing control commands to a print engine.
Specifically, with the above-mentioned conventional network printer, the network interface and the controller each have a processor, and the network interface and the controller are connected by internal dedicated buses. Consequently, the processor of the controller performs its print control while making image data transmission requests to the network interface so that there is no undesired variance in the printing results, without any consideration given to controlling the communication with the host computers.