Importance

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Abstract

A printer controller system for converting a page description language datastream into a pagemap and for dispatching the pagemap to a print engine one band at a time. The system includes the steps of interpreting the PDL datastream to generate a plurality of rendering commands; partitioning the page into a plurality of bands; allocating memory for at least one of the bands; rendering a bitmap in the allocated memory by processing the rendering commands; monitoring access to the allocated memory while processing a rendering command; saving off the rendering command if the processing operation attempts to access memory outside of the allocated memory; and dispatching the bitmap to a print engine. The saved off rendering commands will be retrieved and processing of them will be resumed when rendering the bitmap of the next band. Preferably, the tasks of interpreting the PDL datastream, rendering the bitmaps of the bands, and dispatching the rendered bands, are performed in parallel by separate processing units.

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First Claim