Patent ID: 8287067

Claim:
A recording apparatus which performs recording on a medium, comprising: a recording head having a plurality of recording elements each of which operates in a plurality of operation modes; a drive unit which drives the recording elements; a selection-data generating mechanism which generates a plurality of types of selection data, each of the selection data including a plurality of bit data, and being associated with one of the recording elements for selecting an operation mode, among the operation modes, of the one of the recording elements; a data transmitting mechanism which outputs serially the selection data generated in the selection-data generating mechanism to the drive unit, and also outputs certain bit data which forms one type of the selection data at a tail end of the serially outputted selection data to the drive unit, the certain bit data including a predetermined number of bits larger than the number of bits of the selection data; and a control-signal generating mechanism which generates a control signal which controls the drive unit, under a condition that the bit data having the predetermined number of bits is inputted to the drive unit from the data transmitting mechanism, wherein the data transmitting mechanism inserts insertion data which is different from the one type of the selection data between the selection data associated with the recording elements, and outputs the selection data and the insertion data to the drive unit.