Patent ID: 6371586
Filing Date: 2002-04-16
Classification: B41J

Abstract:
A printer, to which a cartridge is detachably attached, said cartridge keeping ink therein and having a rewritable non-volatile memory, said printer causing the ink kept in said cartridge to be transferred to a printing medium, thereby implementing a printing operation, said printer comprising:a rewritable printer memory; an information writing unit that writes information on a quantity of ink in said cartridge, which is consumed with a progress of a printing operation on said printing medium, as data of a predetermined number of bits, into said printer memory; and a memory writing unit that converts the information on the quantity of ink in said cartridge to data of a specific number of bits, which is less than the predetermined number of bits, and writes the converted data of the specific number of bits into said non-volatile memory included in said cartridge.