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US 2001/0043249 A1Published application
Ink-jet printer system
AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorKazumi Tabuchi
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AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorKazumi Tabuchi
Estimating the term…
In an ink-jet printer system including an ink-jet printer and a multiple number of host PCs, the ink-jet printer has a storage portion for holding the completion time of the last printing operation while each host PC has a controller comprised of an inactive time computing portion which computes the inactive time of printing operation of the ink-jet printer by comparing the completion time of the last printing operation held in the storage portion with the current time when a printing operation starts and a recovery treatment controller for controlling the execution of a recovery treatment of the ink-jet printer in accordance with the inactive time of ink-jet printer. This configuration makes it possible to know the exact time when the ink-jet printer was used last and hence the exact inactive time, whereby it is possible to maintain the ink-jet printer with the least number of recovery treatments and hence reduce the time required for the recovery treatments and consumption of ink.
An ink-jet printer system wherein a common ink-jet printer is shared by a multiple number of host machines, characterized in that the ink-jet printer is provided with a storage means which updates and stores the completion time of the last printing operation and each host machine is provided with a print control means which reads out the completion time from the ink-jet printer at the start of a printing operation, compares it with the current time and selectively issues an execution order of a recovery treatment to the ink-jet printer based on the result of the comparison.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.