Hewlett-packard Company

David L Lanning

Timothy P Blair

Russell Campbell

An imaging device and method provide memory management tasks on data of a page being composed in response to feedback generated by memory management tasks that are performed on pages in the page pipe that are waiting to be imaged. The feedback is throttled relative to memory management tasks that occur in the pipe. Advantageously, the memory management tasks are performed on the page being composed without waiting for an already composed page to finish imaging. Accordingly, page throughput of a multi-page print job is improved. The memory management tasks include compressing, relocating, and/or compressing and relocating data. Page data on which the memory management tasks are performed include raster patches, fonts, patterns, video bands, monster bands and vector bands. Atomic operations and/or a critical section locking mechanism provide collision avoidance as between the memory management tasks performed on data in the pipe and a video imaging task.

Conservation of printer memory on the composition page in response to page pipe feedback

A memory management system usable with a client is provided. The memory defines a memory space including at least one memory buffer, and the memory buffer is defined by a set of attributes including base address and size. The memory includes a fixed-simple memory allocation, having a link, and one of a relocatable simple memory allocation coupled with the link, a head of a complex memory allocation comprising multiple simple memory allocations, or a null simple memory allocation. A memory manager is coupled with the memory and is configured to manage specific instances of memory allocation usable by a client. A memory management interface is coupled with the memory manager and is configurable to enable a client to specify a request for a relocatable memory object. Processing circuitry is coupled with the memory and the memory management interface and is operative to detect a low memory condition. The memory manager is operative to relocate the memory object from one physical location in memory to another physical location in memory to generate a sufficiently large contiguous free memory block for the client so as to overcome the low memory condition. A method is also provided.

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Eagle, ID, United States of America

David L Lanning