Printer controller for monitoring an ink drop count

Abstract

Provided is a printer controller for a pagewidth printer having a printhead configured to print according to print quality information. The printer has a paper transport mechanism for transporting a sheet of paper along a media path through the printer. The controller includes a processor having an address, data and control bus, an expander unit and a decoder unit each coupled to the bus and configured to decompress a bi-level black layer and a continuous tone (contone) layer of a page to be printed. The controller also includes a replaceable ink cartridge arranged in the media path and having a first integrated circuit (IC) interfaced with the processor, the first IC containing the print quality information. Also included is a second IC interfaced to the processor. The processor is configured to count a number of drops of ink printed by the printhead, to update a remaining drop count of the ink cartridge using the counted drops printed and to write an updated remaining drop count to the second IC each time a page has been printed. The processor is also configured to control the paper transport mechanism during printing.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.