Ink cartridge and printer using the same

Abstract

Cost of an ink jet printer is reduced using an EEPROM enabling sequential accesses for storage elements in black and color ink cartridges. The data array of a memory cell of the storage elements is determined so that a second storage area, where rewritable data like data on remaining inks are stored, is accessed before a first storage area where read only data are stored. This way rewritable data can be securely written into the second storage area even after power-off. The second storage area has two memory divisions for each ink. Current data on the remaining ink is alternately written into these memory divisions. Alternatively, the current data on the ink is written into these memory divisions in duplicate. Each memory division has a write complete flag to determine if writing has been completed normally. This enables the remaining quantities of the inks to be monitored accurately and continuously.