Typewriting machines – Including control of format and selection of type-face by...
Patent
1995-12-08
1997-11-18
Hilten, John S.
Typewriting machines
Including control of format and selection of type-face by...
400103, 235382, B41J 530
Patent
active
056880561
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to methods that can be used to control a printer, more particularly an ordinary printer of a microcomputer in order to make it print postal franking marks under conditions of security such that the possibilities of fraud are not greater than those with currently used machines, so as to obtain the approval of the Post Office for devices implementing this method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When the volume of mail to be dispatched becomes ever so slightly great, the use of stamps becomes a painstaking process and entails substantial extra cost. This is why most companies and even individual professional workers generally use various types of franking machines to frank their mail. These machines are purchased or hired either from the Post Office or from specialized firms, and they have a lead-sealed counter that records the sum of the postal fees printed by the machine. This counter is regularly checked by the Post Office in order to prevent fraud. This check is done either by a visit to the premises by an official or by the conveying of the machine to the Post Office. In the latter case, it is generally preferred to use a machine with a counting module that is detachable, unlike in the case of so-called single-piece machines, in order to facilitate transport. While certain modern machines have a relatively developed electronic part that can be used to manage the printing mechanism and the mechanism for selecting the fees to be printed, the counter which is the sensitive part of the instrument as regards fraud is itself always mechanical. This approach entails the well-known drawbacks of mechanical systems, especially as regards wear and tear and lack of sophistication of the functions performed.
Franking machines furthermore have many other drawbacks. First of all, they are dedicated and can be used only for this job. Consequently, they have a high inherent cost to which it is necessary to add the environment, for example in terms of work-stations, that they need. Besides, they require specific handling operations which are themselves costly in terms of time and staff.
Besides, increasingly frequent use is being made of microcomputers, for example of the PC type, that enable the printing not only of text but increasingly of graphics and even of images, and which are happening to constitute the central work unit in present-day offices. These printers are now becoming highly sophisticated and, in laser technology models, their printing capacity is in practice limited only by the level of development of the control software. In practice, the connection with the computer is most often obtained by a parallel interface called a Centronics interface and the logic signals applied to this interface are the object of a very small number of standards, for example the Epson control set of standards or the Post-script language. The relationship between these signals and the head for printing on paper, this head limiting its action in fact to distributing dots on the surface of the paper in an extremely close matrix arrangement, is got by an electronic system that has the task of translating the commands applied to the interface into permission for printing each of these dots. The direct control of each dot is difficult to implement, especially for reasons of speed. Hence, at least for standard printing characters, logic circuits are used, arranged in such a way that a simple command corresponds to a character of a predetermined shape. All these characters correspond to what is called a font. These fonts comprise, for example, characters of the alphabet with various shapes such as bold, italics, roman, etc. The number of fonts directly included in the electronic circuitry of the printer is increasing regularly but, in view of costs, manufacturers generally prefer to use additional cartridges that are sold separately and get plugged into an ad-hoc connector of the printer. Reference could be made to the prior art constituted by the do
REFERENCES:
patent: 4629871 (1986-12-01), Scribner et al.
patent: 4980542 (1990-12-01), Jackson et al.
patent: 5480239 (1996-01-01), Kim et al.
patent: 5567061 (1996-10-01), Nagata
Gemplus Card International
Hilten John S.
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