Patent ID: 7167256

Claim:
An image formation system formed with at least two units of digital copying machines connected to each other and in which a plurality of the connected digital copying machines can share and execute one job, wherein each of the digital copying machines has a link copy function that a document is set in one of digital copying machines and at least two units of the digital copying machines share the job of executing copy operation on said document, and a printer function of printing according to a print request from the outside, and when the start of copy operation based on the link copy function is instructed during the printer operation according to the print request from the outside, the digital copying machine interrupts the printer operation to start the copy operation based on the link copy function, wherein each of the digital copying machines comprises a memory unit connected to a system controller via a system bus and configured to store a data of the document locally in the digital copying machine, said unit comprising: a compression unit, configured to compress said data; a storage unit, configured to store said compressed data received from said compression unit via a local bus in said memory unit and not via said system bus, wherein said memory unit further comprises: at least two storage units; at least two local buses; and at least two compression units; said compression units are able to perform a compression and decompression of said data said storage units being directly connected to said compression units corresponding thereto with said local buses, allowing an external device to perform a parallel data storage and data retrieval from said memory unit.