Printer and ink cartridge attached thereto
First Claim
1. A printer having a printer main body, to which a cartridge is detachably attached, said cartridge keeping ink therein and having a rewritable non-volatile memory, wherein the ink kept in said cartridge is transferred to a printing medium, so as to implement printing, said printer comprising:
- a memory writing unit that writes plural pieces of information relating to said cartridge into said rewritable non-volatile memory of said cartridgeat a preset timing and thereby at a certain frequency ;
a rewritable storage device incorporated in said printer main body of said printer; and
an information writing unit that writes specific information into said rewritable storage device of said printer main body at a specified frequency that is higher than the certain frequency, at which the plural pieces of information relating to said cartridge are written more frequently than the memory writing unit writes information into said non-volatile memory of said cartridge, the specific information being identical with at least part of the plural pieces of information relating to said cartridge.
0 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A printer that enables required data, such as a remaining quantity of each ink, to be written securely even when a storage device having a relatively low allowable frequency of rewriting is applied for a storage element mounted on an ink cartridge. An ink cartridge that is detachably attached to the printer. In the printer, a sequential access-type EEPROM having a relatively low allowable frequency of rewriting is applied for storage elements incorporated in both a black ink cartridge and a color ink cartridge. A print controller in the printer has a memory, for which an EEPROM (or a DRAM) is applicable. Data relating to each ink cartridge, such as a remaining quantity of each ink in the ink cartridge, are stored into both the EEPROM of the print controller and a memory cell included in the storage element of the ink cartridge. The writing operation of data into the EEPROM of the print controller is carried out at every time the remaining quantity of each ink is calculated, whereas the writing operation into the memory cell in the storage element of the ink cartridge is carried out restrictedly in response to a power down instruction. This arrangement causes the frequency of writing into the storage element of the ink cartridge to be lower than the frequency of writing into the EEPROM of the print controller. This accordingly fulfills the requirements, that is, the sufficient reliability of data and the restriction of the allowable frequency of rewriting.
41 Citations
61 Claims
-
1. A printer having a printer main body, to which a cartridge is detachably attached, said cartridge keeping ink therein and having a rewritable non-volatile memory, wherein the ink kept in said cartridge is transferred to a printing medium, so as to implement printing, said printer comprising:
-
a memory writing unit that writes plural pieces of information relating to said cartridge into said rewritable non-volatile memory of said cartridgeat a preset timing and thereby at a certain frequency ;
a rewritable storage device incorporated in said printer main body of said printer; and
an information writing unit that writes specific information into said rewritable storage device of said printer main body at a specified frequency that is higher than the certain frequency, at which the plural pieces of information relating to said cartridge are written more frequently than the memory writing unit writes information into said non-volatile memory of said cartridge, the specific information being identical with at least part of the plural pieces of information relating to said cartridge. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
-
-
18. A method of managing information in a printer, to which a cartridge is detachably attached, said cartridge keeping ink therein and having a rewritable nonvolatile memory, wherein the ink kept in said cartridge is transferred to a printing medium, so as to implement printing, said method comprising the steps of:
-
writing plural pieces of information relating to said cartridge into said rewritable non-volatile memory of said cartridge at a preset timing and thereby at a certain frequency; and
writing specific information into a rewritable storage device incorporated in said printer main body of said printer at a specified frequency that is higher than the certain frequency, at which the plural pieces of information relating to said cartridge are written into said non-volatile memory of said cartridge, the specific information being identical with at least part of the plural pieces of information relating to said cartridge.
-
-
19. A cartridge keeping ink therein and having a rewritable non-volatile memory, said cartridge being configured to be detachably attached to a printer,
wherein information relating to said cartridge is written into said non-volatile memory of said cartridge at a certain frequency that is lower than a specified frequency, at which less frequently than the information relating to said cartridge is written into a storage device incorporated in a printer main body of said printer, and wherein the information is written into said non-volatile memory in response to a power down instruction occurred in the printer main body.
-
32. A printer having a printer main body, to which a cartridge is detachably attached, said cartridge keeping ink therein and having a rewritable non-volatile memory, wherein the ink kept in said cartridge is transferred to a printing medium, so as to implement printing, said printer comprising:
-
memory writing means for writing information relating to said cartridge into said rewritable non-volatile memory of said cartridge;
means for storing data which can be rewritten, said means for storing data being incorporated in said printer main body of said printer; and
information writing means for writing specific information into said means for storing data more frequently than the memory writing means writes information into said non-volatile memory of said cartridge, the specific information being identical with at least part of the information relating to said cartridge. - View Dependent Claims (33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48)
-
-
49. A cartridge keeping ink therein and having a rewritable non-volatile memory, said cartridge for detachably attaching to a printer,
wherein information relating to said cartridge is written by a means for writing information into said non-volatile memory of said cartridge less frequently than the information relating to said cartridge is written into a storage device incorporated in a printer main body of said printer, and wherein the means for writing writes the information into said non-volatile memory in response to a power down instruction occurred in the printer main body.
Specification