How is ink level determined?

[palombian]

I think @The Hat's observation and functional description is correct, only technically speaking, it is the printer processor who stores it's information in the EEPROM.
A cartridge chip only stores information about itself, and since for the price we can't assume it has a processor, it can only contain memory.
It is the printer processor who manages the movement of the head, firing of the nozzles etc so it writes some of this information in the cartridge chip memory.
Historically there was not much record keeping by the printer processor about the cartridges (except nr of changes, ink monitoring disables ...).

Canon users can be very lucky this is not pushed too far as it is by other manufacturers.

This can maybe explained by the fact that Canon is a multinational with - among other activities - a strong photography branch. A lot of buyers of their printers also buy their camera's and lenses, so why should they disgust loyal customers with refilling issues, it is a minority anyway.

HP is a dwindling PC manufacturer where the consumer printing business is an important source of revenue.

Epson's main business is printing ...

 

[apetitphoto]

Are you sure it's not "As the Stomach Turns"?

 

[apetitphoto]

it is the printer processor who stores it's information in the EEPROM

Most likely given the "age" of the device. See below...

A cartridge chip only stores information about itself, and since for the price we can't assume it has a processor, it can only contain memory.

If it were designed today putting a processor on the chip could make sense and might even simplify the main printer firmware. But assuming it only has "personal" information is reasonable.

It is the printer processor who manages the movement of the head, firing of the nozzles etc so it writes some of this information in the cartridge chip memory.

Given the velocity of the print head I would expect that the main printer firmware loads a hardware device with the print lines it receives from the computer doing the print job, and then initiates the head movement and printing. The speed of the processor in the printer is most not capable of configuring and firing the print nozzles as the head moves. It's cheaper to do it in hardware.

Don't forget about that processor in your computer. It is intimately involved in commanding the printer in its quest of putting down ink. You know that pause before printing starts or that occasional pause during printing? That's the driver figuring out what to do and telling the printer. Consider that, for instance, there may not be, say, a green ink but that color is composed of a multitude of other colors printed closely to each other in various patterns.

Canon's multiple product lines and multinational organization (no different from Epson, Konica, Ricoh, ...) may in fact work against them as it causes internal competition for resources.

 

[palombian]

...

Don't forget about that processor in your computer. It is intimately involved in commanding the printer in its quest of putting down ink. You know that pause before printing starts or that occasional pause during printing? That's the driver figuring out what to do and telling the printer. Consider that, for instance, there may not be, say, a green ink but that color is composed of a multitude of other colors printed closely to each other in various patterns.

...

This is certainly the case in our home printers.
Their processor cannot execute Postscript, neither have they a hard disk to store print jobs.

And since the printer driver is proprietary software, the manufacturer can do what he wants and we have no means to interfere with it.

 

[apetitphoto]

This is certainly the case in our home printers.
Their processor cannot execute Postscript, neither have they a hard disk to store print jobs.

And since the printer driver is proprietary software, the manufacturer can do what he wants and we have no means to interfere with it.

It's not that modern printers "can't" execute postscript, it's that the makers have chosen to have that kind, not necessarily postscript itself, of functionality done by the host computer. I've worked on print systems with far less compute power that executed postscript.

I find the lack of mass media storage and job processing capabilities for network attached printers puzzling.

Yes, the printer driver is proprietary, but given the number of RIP vendors it is not a requirement to use the vendor driver. If you know the commands needed by the printer there is nothing to prevent you from controlling it.

 

[PalaDolphin]

Hmmm...since I only have two computers at my home, an old laptop and a desktop, and have no desire to print from anything other than the desktop, I haven't really given much thought how it would be shared. The Pro-100 is connected to my router via Cat 5 network cable. I would imagine I'd have to install the Canon printer software provided on the CD-ROM on my laptop for it to print to it properly. I'm curious how the printer would handle two jobs sent at the same time. But, not curious enough to install the software on my laptop.
I was curious about how many printers support PostScript. I know the Pro-100 doesn't. For a printer to support PostScript it would need to be able to image the entire page before even starting to print, something laser printers need to do anyway. That's why many laser printers support PostScript. But, when I went to search for PostScript supported printers, many inkjet roll printers brands were amongst them: Epson, HP, Xerox, Printronix, etc., but nothing from Canon. Scratch that: HP DesignJet Z5600 PostScript 44" Large-Format Inkjet Printer. The inkjet PostScript printers are all very expensive.
I don't even know where I'm going with this. I just print raster stuff from Ps & Lr. I'm not into Adobe Illustrator, well not for now. I should be working on my logo and I guess that would drag me into the vector graphics world.
I used to write simple PostScript to print labels for media (5.25" & 3.5" floppies, CD-ROMs, etc.) for the software we distributed ourselves, UniBasic, back in the '80s. We used GhostScript compile from C to run on Xenix. So, GhostScript was our RIP and we could print labels on a dotmatrix.
And, again, I don't know where I'm going with this.

 

[apetitphoto]

Most people don't have a need for handling multiple simultaneous sources, but given the increase in the number of print capable devices, this may become an issue. Given the decrease in the price of storage media, spooling multiple jobs should not be a problem. Or, if you want to enable that feature just plug in a USB stick or flash card to add storage for spooling and/or internal RIP needs.

 

[The Hat]

First off, Canon won’t allow (Tolerate) any interference with their printers from any RIP software company, so no other drivers are available or permitted to run any Canon printer, it’s got to be remembered, you may own the hunk of metal you call your printer but Canon owns and controls the workings on the inside.

Postscript is a total different kettle of fish, all consumer printers whether there’re laser or inkjet won’t have Postscript capacity, for one good reason, the cost price of Postscript makes it impossible, it can double or treble a printer’s purchase price.

I once had a 4 colour Epson inkjet that I converted to postscript, and that €400 printer cost an additional €600 for the postscript software, which then only allowed me to print 1/3 of an A4 page at a time, (Not enough memory)

The extra ram needed for to print one full page would have cost another €600, needless to say that venture soon died, and I went back to my A3 Postscript mono laser printer, colour was way to expensive for me.

P.S. I did get financial help to purchase the Mono laser, at almost 3 grand...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

you can print to a file directly, and print that file later, as well on another computer with the same system and configuration, that's part of the Windows printing system and not specific to some driver configuration.

Just use the option with one click ' Print to file' - 'Ausgabe in Datei' . This is basically saving the spool file for a later print

 

[apetitphoto]

First off, Canon won’t allow (Tolerate) any interference with their printers from any RIP software company, so no other drivers are available or permitted to run any Canon printer, it’s got to be remembered, you may own the hunk of metal you call your printer but Canon owns and controls the workings on the inside.

Postscript is a total different kettle of fish, all consumer printers whether there’re laser or inkjet won’t have Postscript capacity, for one good reason, the cost price of Postscript makes it impossible, it can double or treble a printer’s purchase price.

I once had a 4 colour Epson inkjet that I converted to postscript, and that €400 printer cost an additional €600 for the postscript software, which then only allowed me to print 1/3 of an A4 page at a time, (Not enough memory)

The extra ram needed for to print one full page would have cost another €600, needless to say that venture soon died, and I went back to my A3 Postscript mono laser printer, colour was way to expensive for me.

P.S. I did get financial help to purchase the Mono laser, at almost 3 grand...

There are a few canon specific RIP instances, primarily for the larger beasts.

Postscript may be expensive both in terms of fees and resource consumption. Ghostscript seems to e fairly popular and I would imagine that adobe really wants their logo on your device so they may be willing to deal.

Memory, these days is cheap.