Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Toshiaki Mogi

Hisao Tatsumi

Kenji Yamamori

Toshio Kakizawa

Haruhiko Kayata

A thermal-transfer printer includes a carriage arranged for reciprocation along a recording paper and a thermal head movable together with the carriage. On the carriage is mounted a ribbon cassette having a pair of reels and repeatedly usable ink ribbon wound on the reels. The reels are rotated to transport the ink ribbon in a desired direction by a ribbon transport mechanism arranged in the carriage. The operation of the transport mechanism is controlled by a control device. The device includes a main control unit for supplying a transport control signal to the mechanism to drive the reels so that the ink ribbon is transported in the direction opposite to the moving direction of the thermal head during printing by the thermal head, and a take-up control signal output circuit for supplying a take-up control signal to the transport mechanism to drive the reels so that the starting end side of the ink ribbon is taken up for a predetermined length at the end of each printing in the advancing direction of the thermal head.

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Nagoya, Japan

Toshiaki Mogi