Printer with loudspeaker interface
AssigneeSilverbrook Research Pty Ltd
InventorsPaul Lapstun, Kia Silverbrook
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A printer includes a loudspeaker that announces error messages and the like. The error messages are stored as sound files in an onboard memory device. A central processor communicates with a speaker interface circuit by means of a data bus. A DMA controller is provided that mediates the transfer of instructions from the processor to the speaker interface and to a number of functional circuits that are also coupled to the bus. The speaker interface is equipped with a FIFO circuit that is responsive to DMA controller mediated transfer of sound files from the memory. In order to initiate the playing of a sound file the processor simply programs a DMA channel of the speaker interface.
Claims6
A printer including:
- a processor coupled to a data bus;
- a memory device coupled to the data bus;
- a number of functional circuit modules coupled to the data bus to receive instructions from the processor and data from the memory;
- and
- a DMA controller arranged to mediate transfer of instructions from the processor to each of said number of circuits;
- wherein the functional circuit modules include:
- an image data expansion and decoding circuit;
- a print data generation circuit for generating print data from the expanded and decoded image data circuit;
- a printhead interface circuit configured to communicate data between the data bus and a micro-electromechanical pagewidth printhead;
- and
- a speaker interface circuit that includes a FIFO circuit for DMA controller mediated transfers of sound files from the memory, the processor being configured to output a sound file to the speaker interface by programming a DMA channel of the speaker interface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.