Patent ID: 7479975

Claim:
An intermediate transfer type thermal transfer printer in which a pancake-shaped member having a long ink ribbon having a terminating end mark indicating a terminating end and both ends of which are respectively wound around a supplying core and a winding core is mounted on the printer, the printer comprising: a discriminating member disposed on at least one of the supplying core and the winding core and having information on the pancake-shaped member, including at least discriminating information, information on a recordable number of sheets and information on colors of the ink ribbon; a detecting sensor that detects the terminating end mark of the ribbon; a readout member for reading out the information of the discriminating member; a data storage unit for storing the information recorded on the discriminating member on the pancake-shaped member, which is read out by the readout member, and mounting histories and print histories of all the pancake-shaped members which are mounted on the main body; and a control unit that stores the information of the discriminating member which is read out by the readout member in the data storage unit and determines a status of the pancake-shaped member mounted in the main body on the basis of the discriminating information and the information on the recordable number of sheets which are stored in the data storage unit, wherein the control unit determines whether the ink cartridge is appropriate for the printer or not on the basis of the discriminating information, to stop the preparation of recording when the ink cartridge is inappropriate for the printer, and to detect a remaining amount of the ink ribbon on the basis of the information on the recordable number of sheets and mounting history and recorded history stored in the data storage unit when the ink cartridge is appropriate for the printer, and when the terminating end of the ink ribbon is detected by the detecting sensor, or when it is determined that the number of printed sheets reaches a printable limit number, the information recorded on the discriminating member is stored in the data storage unit, and then the preparation for recording is stopped when the pancake-shaped member having the same information as the stored information is mounted.