Pagewidth printer having a printer controller with page expansion and control circuitry

摘要

A pagewidth printer includes a pagewidth printhead. A feed mechanism feeds print media through the printhead so that the printhead can carry out a pagewidth printing operation on the print media. A printer controller controls operation of the printhead. The controller has a printed circuit board that includes a central processor. The central processor has a bus. A data input interface is connected to the bus so that the bus can receive compressed and encoded page data from a computer-based machine connected to the data input interface. Page data expansion and decoding circuitry is connected to the bus and configured to expand and decode the compressed and encoded page data. A printhead interface communicates print page data to the printhead. Processing circuitry controls operation of components of the printer controller.