Patent ID: 7481520

Claim:
A printer, comprising: a head, which ejects a liquid; a liquid cartridge, which includes: an ink cartridge, which has a first housing portion for containing the liquid therein to be ejected from the head to a printing medium for printing; a waste liquid storage cartridge, which has a second housing portion for containing a waste liquid which is not used for the printing; and a rewritable nonvolatile storage portion, which stores a first threshold, a second threshold, liquid amount information and waste liquid amount information; a writing/reading portion, which reads the first and second thresholds, the liquid amount information and the waste liquid amount information from the storage portion; and a determinant, which judges both whether a liquid amount of the liquid amount information read from the storage portion reaches the first threshold and whether a waste liquid amount of the waste liquid amount information read from the storage portion reaches the second threshold; and a notifier, which notifies a life time of the liquid cartridge when either one of the two judgments is judged by the determinant, wherein the first threshold indicates a near liquid end state in which the liquid in the first housing portion is near to end; wherein the second threshold indicates a near full state in which the waste liquid in the second housing portion is near to full; wherein the liquid amount information indicates the liquid amount of the liquid contained in the first housing portion; wherein the waste liquid amount information indicates the waste liquid amount of the waste liquid contained in the second housing portion; and wherein the ink cartridge and the waste liquid cartridge are integrally formed.