Printer and printing cartridge therefor

Abstract

An ink cartridge is removably attached to a serial printer. The ink cartridge has a memory device in which information on the ink cartridge is stored. The information may include information such as viscosity, temperature coefficient, the hue and brightness of color ink, various user's settings of density of a printed image and color tone of a printed color image, and identification data indicative of a kind of the ink cartridge. A controller in the printer determines whether the attached cartridge is suitable for use with the printer, by comparing the identification data read from the ink cartridge with the reference data stored in the printer. The information may also include data of a maximum count of dots that the ink cartridge is capable of printing and data of a cumulative count of printed dots that the cartridge has printed. The printer includes an adder for producing sum of a number of dots currently being printed and the cumulative count of dots, and stores the sum as a new cumulative count into the ink cartridge. The printer indicates to the user when the ink of the cartridge is about to run out. A capacitor having a capacitance value corresponding to a kind of the ink cartridge may be provided in the cartridge. The printer generates data similar to the identification data to identify a kind of ink cartridge.