JP2002350568A - Electronic apparatus and method of clocking the same - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic apparatus in which the time capable of being measured by a hard timer is made long without changing the electronic apparatus. SOLUTION: The electronic apparatus is constituted in such a way that a clocking operation is performed by electric power supplied to the electronic apparatus irrespective of the state of a power supply switch in the electronic apparatus. When the switch is turned off (S1), a first counting means which performs a counting-up operation in every prescribed time is started (S2). When the value of the first counting means becomes a countable maximum value, a control means for the electronic apparatus is started so as to inform that the first counting means has been saturated. The number of times in which the control means for the electronic apparatus is started is counted (S4). When the control means for the electronic apparatus is started, the counting-up operation is started again after the first counting means has been initialized.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic device and a method for timing an electronic device, and more particularly, to a timing device configured to operate with electric power supplied to the electronic device regardless of the state of a power switch. The present invention relates to an electronic device incorporating the electronic device and a method of timing the electronic device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Internal timers mounted on electronic equipment include:
A period timer (hereinafter referred to as a soft timer) realized by software, an MPU or an ASIC (a gate array, hereinafter referred to as a G.
A. There is a hard timer provided as an internal function. Generally, in order to realize various functions of an electronic device, a combination of both is used by making use of each characteristic.

[0003] In many electronic devices, the soft timer is started and initialized when the power is turned on and the electronic device is made usable. When the power is turned off, most functions normally used by the user are stopped, and the soft timer is consumed. This soft timer is also stopped to stop the clock for the system and put it to sleep to save power.

[0004] As a partial exception, in a device that is fully activated even when the power is turned off when charging a battery or the like, there is a case where the soft timer is used without being stopped.
In recent years, not only when receiving power supply from a battery but also when receiving power supply from an AC power supply, it has been emphasized to reduce power consumption during standby (standby power). It is often configured to stop everything.

On the other hand, unlike the above-mentioned soft timer, the hard timer measures time even after the power is turned off using, for example, a dedicated clock of the ASIC, and measures the elapsed time between power-offs even when the system is in the sleep state. The feature is that it is configured to be able to. Using this, for example,
The time during which the user is not using the device is measured, and a specific portion is refreshed so as to function normally at the next power-on. In a specific example, in a recording apparatus of an ink jet system or the like, if the unused time is long, ink thickens and clogs the nozzles of the recording head. The hard timer is effectively used to measure the unused time.

[0006] However, the hard timer has a limited time that can be measured due to the relationship with resources, as is generally called a one-week timer or a one-month timer. A hard timer alone measures a long time. It is difficult.
Therefore, as a method of measuring the time longer than the time that can be measured by the hard timer, the time during power off is measured by the hard timer, and this function is transferred to the soft timer when the power is turned on, and the time between power off is measured. A technique of measuring the time by adding them together is often used. This method is useful as long as the power-off time does not exceed the time that can be measured by the hard timer.

[0007]

However, in recent electronic devices, it is necessary to measure a longer time than before, such as the accumulated elapsed time since the device was shipped and first used. Even when the soft timer and the hard timer are used together, such an elapsed time cannot be measured correctly.

In other words, the above-described method using both the soft timer and the hard timer has a problem that if the power-off time exceeds the time that can be measured by the hard timer, the elapsed time cannot be measured correctly.

More specifically, the state of the power supply (ON / OFF)
When the elapsed time is measured regardless of whether the power is turned off, the first elapsed time from when the power is first turned on is measured by a soft timer, and then the second elapsed time while the power is turned off is hardened. Measure with a timer. Further, a third elapsed time from when the power is turned on again is measured by a soft timer. Here, the accumulated elapsed time since the first power-on is the sum of the first elapsed time, the second elapsed time, and the third elapsed time.

However, if the second elapsed time exceeds the maximum time (Tmax) that can be measured by the hard timer, the second elapsed time always becomes Tmax, and a correct accumulated elapsed time cannot be obtained. .

Although a method of setting a long time that can be measured by the hard timer in advance is conceivable, the number of bits of the counter used in the hard timer increases, and it becomes necessary to newly design a circuit of the hard timer.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and provides an electronic apparatus and an electronic apparatus that can increase the time that can be measured by a hard timer without increasing costs and without making significant changes. The purpose is to provide a method of timing equipment.

[0013]

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic apparatus having a built-in clock device, wherein the clock device is independent of the state of a power switch of the electronic device. A first counting unit configured to operate by the power supplied to the electronic device, wherein the timing device is started when the power switch is turned off, and counts up every predetermined time; and Interrupting means for activating control means of the electronic device to notify that the first counting means is saturated when the value of the first counting means has reached the maximum countable value; Has a second counting means for counting the number of times the control means of the electronic device has been activated, and the first counting is performed when the control means of the electronic device is activated by the interrupt means. means The count up to start again after the initialization.

According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a timing method for an electronic device, which is provided to the electronic device irrespective of a state of a power switch of the electronic device. When the power switch is turned off, a first counting unit that counts up every predetermined time is activated, and the value of the first counting unit is a maximum countable value when the power switch is turned off. When it becomes, the control means of the electronic device is activated to notify that the first counting means is saturated, the number of times the control means of the electronic device is activated is counted, and the control means of the electronic device is When activated, the count-up is started again after the first counting means is initialized.

That is, in the present invention, the time is measured by the power supplied to the electronic device regardless of the state of the power switch of the electronic device. The first that counts up every time
Is activated, and when the value of the first counting means reaches the maximum countable value, the control means of the electronic device is activated to notify that the first counting means is saturated. The number of times the control means has been activated is counted, and when the control means of the electronic device is activated, the count-up is restarted after the first counting means is initialized.

With this configuration, the number of times that the control means of the electronic device has been activated can be easily determined by the timer provided as a timer in the electronic device to the maximum value and the number of saturations can be easily determined. Time elapsed since the switch was turned off can be accurately measured.

Therefore, if the electronic device is originally provided with a timer as a time measuring means, the measurable time can be greatly increased by making a slight change.
By using this, for example, the time that has elapsed since the power switch of the electronic device was turned off can be accurately measured over a long period of time. It can be correctly determined whether or not it is necessary.

[0018]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In the embodiment described below, a printer will be described as an example of a recording apparatus using an ink jet recording method.

In this specification, “recording” (also referred to as “printing”) means not only the formation of significant information such as characters and figures, but also whether a person is visually perceived as significant or insignificant. Regardless of whether or not the image has been exposed so as to be able to perform the process, the case where an image, a pattern, a pattern, or the like is widely formed on a recording medium or a case where the medium is processed is also described.

The "recording medium" is not limited to paper used in a general recording apparatus, but is widely applicable to ink, such as cloth, plastic film, metal plate, glass, ceramics, wood, leather, etc. Things are also represented.

Further, "ink" (sometimes referred to as "liquid") is to be interpreted broadly as in the definition of "recording (printing)", and when applied on a recording medium, A liquid that can be used for forming an image, a pattern, a pattern, or the like, processing a recording medium, or processing ink (for example, coagulating or insolubilizing a colorant in ink applied to the recording medium) is used.

FIG. 1 shows an ink jet printer (hereinafter, referred to as a printer) 10 which is a typical embodiment of the present invention.
It is an external appearance perspective view which shows the outline of a structure. In FIG.
The carriage CR that engages with the spiral groove 5004 of the lead screw 5005 that rotates via the driving force transmission gears 5009 to 5011 in conjunction with the forward and reverse rotation of the drive motor 5013 has a pin (not shown) and a guide rail. 50
03 reciprocates in the directions of arrows a and b.

The carriage CR is equipped with an integral type ink jet cartridge CTG containing a recording head HD and an ink tank IT. Reference numeral 5002 denotes a paper holding plate, and the recording paper P extends in the moving direction of the carriage CR.
Is pressed against the platen 5000. 5007,50
A photo coupler 08 is a home position detector for confirming the presence of the carriage lever 5006 in this area and switching the rotation direction of the motor 5013. Reference numeral 5016 denotes a member that supports a cap member 5022 that caps the front surface of the recording head HD. Reference numeral 5015 denotes a suction device that suctions the inside of the cap.
3, the suction recovery of the recording head is performed.

Reference numeral 5017 denotes a cleaning blade.
Reference numeral 19 denotes a member which enables the blade to move in the front-rear direction.
It goes without saying that the blade is not limited to this form, and a well-known cleaning blade can be applied to this embodiment. Also, 50
Reference numeral 21 denotes a lever for starting suction for suction recovery, which moves with the movement of the cam 5020 engaging with the carriage, and the driving force from the drive motor is controlled by a known transmission mechanism such as clutch switching. .

The capping, cleaning, and suction recovery are configured so that desired operations can be performed at the corresponding positions by the action of the lead screw 5005 when the carriage comes to the area on the home position side. If a desired operation is performed at the timing, any of the embodiments can be applied.

In all these recovery operations, the threshold value of the start trigger is measured by a hard timer / soft timer (not shown) built in the printer. In particular, in the case of suction recovery, it is important to monitor the timer in order to optimize the nozzles of the print head and to always maintain print quality. The time width is also large and small, and after replacing the ink tank, the small suction that is used to attract the ink from the liquid chamber to the discharge port leaves it unused for a long time, so it is possible to discard the fixed part due to the ink characteristics. There is even a large suction, and the measuring time is wide ranging from several hours to several months.

Next, a control configuration for executing the recording control of the above-described apparatus will be described.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the control circuit of the printer 10. In the figure showing the control circuit, 1
Reference numeral 700 denotes a USB interface for inputting recording data from a personal computer 1000 (hereinafter, referred to as a host); 1701, an MPU; 1702, a program ROM for storing a control program executed by the MPU 1701 and necessary control data; This is a DRAM for storing data and recording signals supplied to the recording head HD. A gate array (G.1704) controls supply of a recording signal to the recording head HD.
A. ), The interface 1700, the MPU 170
1. Data transfer control between the DRAMs 1703 is also performed. 17
Reference numeral 10 denotes a carrier motor for transporting the recording head HD, and reference numeral 1709 denotes a transport motor for transporting a recording medium (for example, recording paper). Reference numeral 1705 denotes a head driver for driving the recording head HD, and reference numerals 1706 and 1707 denote motor drivers for driving the transport motor 1709 and the carrier motor 1710, respectively.

The ROM 1702 also stores average characteristic data of the recording head. Reference numeral 1708 denotes a non-volatile memory (for example, EEPROM, FeRAM, NVRAM, or the like) that stores print head characteristic data in addition to the printer device serial number, operation status, various correction information, and the like.

The operation of the above control configuration will be described. When recording data enters the interface 1700, the gate array 1
The recording data is converted into a recording signal for printing between the 704 and the MPU 1701. And the motor driver 1
The print heads 706 and 1707 are driven, and the printheads HD according to the print data sent to the head driver 1705.
Is driven, and recording is performed.

Referring to FIG. A. 170
4 is a hard timer depending on the clock. In particular, it is characterized in that it continues to be driven as long as power is supplied irrespective of the state of the system, and aims to measure the time during which the system is sleeping. The time is defined as zero starting when the system is shut down, and provides the elapsed time until the next system down regardless of the state of the system. This operates independently of the system timer (soft timer) in the MPU 1701, and is used as a means for measuring the time of system down (power off) in which the soft timer cannot be measured. Suitable for use as a timer.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing how the time displayed by the hard timer and the soft timer changes depending on the power supply state of the printer. The horizontal axis represents the actual elapsed time, and A to E represent the time points when events such as power-on, power-off, and occurrence of suction recovery occur. The vertical axis is printer M
Represents the local time managed by the PU.

The numeral 31 indicated by a broken line in the figure represents an ideal measurement time (printer local time) in the printer, and increases in accordance with the real time regardless of the event. 32 shown by a thick solid line is a hard timer, 3 shown by a thin solid line
Numeral 3 indicates the measurement time by the soft timer.

The time 32 measured by the hard timer is AC
The measurement is started at time A when power from the battery or the battery is obtained, and increases along 31. On the other hand, the measurement time 33 by the soft timer is stopped while the printer is not used (the power is off and the system is in the sleep state). When the system is started up by pressing the power switch at time point B, the soft timer is started, and the time value is set with the value of the hard timer at that time as an initial value, and time measurement is started.
Thereafter, as long as the system is in the power-on state, it can operate alone.

Next, when the system is shut down by pressing the power switch at time point C, the system enters a sleep state and the soft timer 33 also stops.
The measurement time does not change until the system starts up again.
On the other hand, the measurement time 32 is reset by the hard timer at the time point C, and the time measurement is started again from 0. As described above, the measurement time 32 by the hard timer always indicates the elapsed time from the latest system down.

Thereafter, at time D, when the system is started up by pressing the power switch again, the soft timer 3
3 is started, the time is restarted from the time obtained by adding the value of the hard timer (corresponding to the time during which the system was down) at that time to the held measurement time, and the time is resumed while the system is powered on. Be able to work. Further, when the power supply from the AC or the battery is cut off at the time point E, both the soft timer 33 and the hard timer 32 are initialized, and the measurement time of all the timers becomes zero.

As described above, the soft timer can measure the real-time time when the system is running, but cannot measure the time when the system goes down. When the system is restarted, the time measurement is restarted from the time when the system was last down, regardless of the time during which the system was down. Therefore, in order to compensate for this, the value of the measurement time 32 of the hard timer, which can be measured even when the system is down, is added to the measurement time 33 of the soft timer at the time of system startup. The measurement time 33 of the soft timer can be matched with the printer local time.

However, as described above, the time that can be measured by the hard timer is not infinite, but is limited by resources such as the size (number of bits) of a timer dedicated counter. When the maximum value that can be measured is exceeded, the measurement time 32 of the hard timer always becomes the maximum value.
Is no longer accurate.

Considering the case where these timers are used to determine whether or not to execute the suction recovery process as the maintenance of the head in the printer, the system down time of the printer ranges from several months to several years. In some cases, long-term measurement is required for maintenance of the ink and the recording head. Therefore, unless the maximum time that can be measured by the timer is designed to be a sufficient value,
It is useless as a long timer as described above.

In the present embodiment, a conventional hard timer is provided by providing a second counter for counting the number of times that the counter of the hard timer becomes full without increasing the maximum time that can be measured by the hard timer. On the other hand, the configuration is such that the measurement time of the timer is lengthened by making a slight change.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a basic configuration of the resources of the hard timer according to the present embodiment. (A) shows a first counter 41, (b) shows a control register 42 which enables basic control of starting, stopping, resetting, and counter full interrupt of a timer, and (c) shows a counter full interrupt. Second counter 43 for recording the number of times
Is shown.

The counter 41 has the same configuration as the conventional hard timer. If the counter 41 has a 2-byte configuration as shown in the figure, the maximum value of the counter is 65535 in the case of counting every one minute. This corresponds to 45 days.

As shown, the control register 42 has a plurality of bits indicating a control state such as a timer start bit, an interrupt enable bit, and a reset bit, and the CPU uses these bits to stop, reset,
And a counter full interrupt.

The counter 43 is a counter that counts up each time the timer counter 41 becomes full, and has the same configuration as the timer counter 41. The size is not particularly limited and is set as needed. This counter 43 is provided by the MPU or G. A. This is realized by using a part of the usable portion of the internal register. In addition to the hardware configuration using the register, the counter 4 uses a work area provided on the DRAM as a part of the resource managed by the basic software of the printer.
3 can also be realized.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a process for causing the hard timer of this embodiment to function as a long time timer. (A) shows a process when the power is turned off, (b) shows a process when the first counter becomes full, and (c) shows a process when the power is turned on.

In the power-off processing shown in FIG. 5A, when the user stops using the printer and turns off the power (step S1), the printer basic software sets the value of the first counter 41 of the hard timer ( C1) is cleared to zero and restarted (step S2). Next, the value (Cs) of the counter of the soft timer is stored, and the soft timer is stopped with the clock stop of the system down (Step S).
3).

In the process when the first counter becomes full as shown in FIG. 5B, if the printer is left for a long time in a state where the power is turned off by the user, the first counter 41 of the hard timer is used. Is the maximum measurable value (Tmax). The system is activated from the sleep state by using a timer interrupt signal generated at this time as a trigger (step S4). The system increments the value (C2) of the second counter 43 of the hard timer,
The value (C1) of the first counter 41 is cleared to zero and the hard timer is restarted (step S5). Thereafter, the system stops the clock and returns to the sleep state (step S6).

In the series of processing from S4 to S6, while the system is sleeping, the value (C1) of the first counter 41 of the hard timer becomes the maximum measurable value (Tmax) (counter full). This is an interrupt process that is repeatedly executed each time.

In the process at the time of power-on shown in FIG. 5C, when the user turns on the power, the system is started again (step S7). The system sets the value of the soft timer to the elapsed time (Cs') since the previous power supply was started.
(Step S8). More specifically, since the time Cs up to when the system was down last time and all the off times during which the system was down were added, Cs ′ =
Cs + C1 + C2 × Tmax is set as the value of the soft timer immediately after the system starts, and the soft timer is restarted so that the value is updated and counting is performed thereafter (step S9).

As described above, according to the present embodiment,
When the time after the printer is turned off exceeds the maximum time that can be measured by the hard timer, the counter is reset by a counter full interrupt and restarted, and the number of times the counter becomes full is recorded. Thus, measurement can be performed for a longer time by making only a slight change to the conventionally used hard timer.

The maximum time that can be measured by the hard timer is determined by the number of bits of the second counter that records the number of times that the counter becomes full. Therefore, by increasing the number of bits of the second counter, the number of bits is logically long. Time can be measured. This second counter is provided by the CPU or the G. A. The register may be provided on the DRAM managed by the basic software of the system. In any case, the object intended by the present invention can be achieved.

When the printer uses this long timer, it is possible to determine a long time of several months to several years, and for example, an unused period such as sticking of ink or clogging of a nozzle of a recording head becomes long. The occurrence of the problem due to the above can be determined by the long timer. Therefore, it is possible to issue an instruction to perform maintenance when the printer is started up by changing the properties of the device by leaving the ink and the head for a long time. Recording with the performance of

[Other Embodiments] In the above embodiment,
Although a serial type ink jet printer has been described as an example, the present invention is applicable to any printer having a timer therein.
It can be widely applied to electronic devices other than such printers.

The above-described embodiment is particularly provided with a means (for example, an electrothermal converter or a laser beam) for generating thermal energy as energy used for ejecting ink even in an ink jet recording system. By using a method in which a change in the state of the ink is caused by energy, higher density and higher definition of recording can be achieved.

The typical configuration and principle are described in, for example, US Pat. Nos. 4,723,129 and 4,740.
It is preferable to use the basic principle disclosed in the specification of Japanese Patent No. 796. This method can be applied to both the so-called on-demand type and continuous type. In particular, in the case of the on-demand type, liquid (ink)
By applying at least one drive signal corresponding to the recorded information and providing a rapid temperature rise exceeding the nucleate boiling to the electrothermal transducer arranged corresponding to the sheet or the liquid path in which Since thermal energy is generated in the electrothermal transducer and film boiling occurs on the heat-acting surface of the recording head, bubbles in the liquid (ink) corresponding to this drive signal on a one-to-one basis can be formed. It is valid.

The liquid (ink) is ejected through the ejection opening by the growth and contraction of the bubble to form at least one droplet. When the drive signal is formed into a pulse shape, the growth and shrinkage of the bubble are performed immediately and appropriately, so that the ejection of a liquid (ink) having particularly excellent responsiveness can be achieved, which is more preferable.

As the pulse-shaped driving signal, those described in US Pat. Nos. 4,463,359 and 4,345,262 are suitable. Further, if the conditions described in US Pat. No. 4,313,124 relating to the temperature rise rate of the heat acting surface are adopted, more excellent recording can be performed.

As the configuration of the recording head, in addition to the combination configuration (a linear liquid flow path or a right-angled liquid flow path) of a discharge port, a liquid path, and an electrothermal converter as disclosed in the above-mentioned respective specifications, The configurations described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,558,333 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,600, which disclose the configuration in which the heat acting surface is arranged in the bending region, are also included in the present invention. In addition, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 59-123670 discloses a configuration in which a common slot is used as a discharge section of an electrothermal transducer for a plurality of electrothermal transducers, and an opening for absorbing pressure waves of thermal energy is discharged. A configuration based on JP-A-59-138461, which discloses a configuration corresponding to each unit, may be adopted.

Further, as a full-line type recording head having a length corresponding to the width of the maximum recording medium that can be recorded by the recording apparatus, the length is determined by a combination of a plurality of recording heads as disclosed in the above specification. This may be either a configuration that satisfies the requirements or a configuration as a single recording head that is integrally formed.

In addition to the cartridge-type recording head in which the ink tank is provided integrally with the recording head itself described in the above embodiment, the recording head is electrically connected to the apparatus main body by being mounted on the apparatus main body. A replaceable chip-type recording head that allows for easy connection and supply of ink from the apparatus body may be used.

It is preferable to add recovery means for the printhead, preliminary auxiliary means, and the like to the configuration of the printing apparatus described above, since the printing operation can be further stabilized. Specific examples thereof include capping means for the recording head, cleaning means, pressurizing or suction means, preheating means using an electrothermal transducer or another heating element or a combination thereof. It is also effective to provide a preliminary ejection mode for performing ejection that is different from printing, in order to perform stable printing.

Further, the recording mode of the recording apparatus is not limited to the recording mode of only the mainstream color such as black, but may be a single recording head or a combination of a plurality of recording heads. Alternatively, the apparatus may be provided with at least one of full colors by color mixture.

In the above-described embodiment, the description has been made on the assumption that the ink is a liquid. However, even if the ink solidifies at room temperature or lower, the ink that softens or liquefies at room temperature is used. Or, in the ink jet method, generally, the temperature of the ink itself is controlled within a range of 30 ° C. or more and 70 ° C. or less to control the temperature so that the viscosity of the ink is in a stable ejection range.
It is sufficient that the ink is in a liquid state when the use recording signal is applied.

In addition, in order to positively prevent temperature rise due to thermal energy as energy for changing the state of the ink from the solid state to the liquid state, the temperature is positively prevented.
Alternatively, in order to prevent evaporation of the ink, an ink which solidifies in a standing state and liquefies by heating may be used. In any case, the application of heat energy causes the ink to be liquefied by application of the heat energy according to the recording signal and the liquid ink to be ejected, or to start to solidify when reaching the recording medium. The present invention is also applicable to a case where an ink having a property of liquefying for the first time is used.

In such a case, the ink is disclosed in JP-A-54-5
No. 6,847, or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 60-71260, in which the porous sheet is opposed to the electrothermal converter while being held as a liquid or solid substance in the concave portion or through hole of the porous sheet. It may be. In the present invention, the most effective one for each of the above-mentioned inks is to execute the above-mentioned film boiling method.

Even if the present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), a device including one device (for example, a copying machine, a facsimile machine) Etc.). Further, an object of the present invention is to provide a storage medium storing a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or an apparatus, and a computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus to store the storage medium. Needless to say, this can also be achieved by reading and executing the program code stored in the program.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium implements the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM, CD
-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. ) May perform some or all of the actual processing, and the processing may realize the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instruction of the program code, It goes without saying that the CPU included in the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

When the present invention is applied to the storage medium, the storage medium stores program codes corresponding to the above-described flowchart (shown in FIG. 5).

[0073]

As described above, according to the present invention, the number of times that the timer provided in the electronic device is counted up to the maximum value and becomes saturated by the number of times the control means of the electronic device is activated can be easily determined. Therefore, the time elapsed since the power switch of the electronic device was turned off can be accurately measured.

Therefore, when a timer is provided as a timekeeping means in an electronic device, the time that can be measured can be greatly increased by making a slight change.
By using this, for example, the time that has elapsed since the power switch of the electronic device was turned off can be accurately measured over a long period of time. It can be correctly determined whether or not it is necessary.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of an ink jet printer which is a typical embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a control circuit of the inkjet printer of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing how the time displayed by the hard timer and the soft timer changes according to the power supply state of the printer.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a basic configuration of resources of a hard timer according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a process for realizing a function of a long timer according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1000 Host 1001 Storage medium 1700 USB interface 1701 MPU 1702 ROM 1703 RAM 1704 Gate array (GA) 1705 Head driver 1708 EEPROM 1711 Non-volatile memory IJH / HD recording head

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) G06F 1/14 G06F 1/04 352 F-term (Reference) 2C061 AP01 AP03 AP04 AQ05 AS13 HK10 HK19 HK20 HK23 2F002 AA04 AD03 AD07 AE01 GA09 GC07 GC22 2F085 AA00 CC10 EE09 EE10 GG06 GG21

Claims (11)

[Claims] 1. An electronic device having a built-in timing device,
The timing device is configured to operate with the power supplied to the electronic device regardless of a state of a power switch of the electronic device, and the timing device is configured such that when the power switch is turned off, A first counting unit that is activated and counts up at predetermined time intervals; and when the value of the first counting unit reaches a maximum countable value, the control unit of the electronic device is activated to activate the first counting unit. Interrupt means for notifying that the counting means has saturated, and second counting means for counting the number of times the interrupt means has activated the control means of the electronic device, wherein the control means of the electronic device has An electronic device for, when activated by the interrupting means, restarting the count-up after initializing the first counting means. 2. When the power switch is turned on,
2. The electronic device according to claim 1, further comprising an integrated time measuring unit that sets a time measured by the time counting device as an initial value, and counts up at predetermined time intervals. 3. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the second counting unit includes a register that stores the number of times that the control unit of the electronic device has been activated. 4. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the second counting unit stores the number of times the control unit of the electronic device has been activated in a work area of a memory used by the control unit of the electronic device. 3. The electronic device according to 2. 5. The electronic device according to claim 2, further comprising a refresh unit that causes the electronic device to perform a predetermined operation according to a value of the integrated time measuring unit. 6. A timekeeping method for an electronic device, wherein timekeeping is performed by power supplied to the electronic device regardless of a state of a power switch of the electronic device, wherein the power switch is turned off. Then, the first counting means that counts up every predetermined time is activated, and when the value of the first counting means reaches the maximum countable value, the control means of the electronic device is activated. The first counting means is saturated, and counts the number of times the control means of the electronic device is activated. When the control means of the electronic device is activated, the first
Counting up is restarted after the counting means is initialized. 7. When the power switch is turned on,
7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the time measured by the time measuring device is set as an initial value, and the integrated time is counted by counting up every predetermined time. 8. The register according to claim 6, wherein the number of times the control unit of the electronic device is activated is stored in a register.
Electronic device timing method described in 1. 9. The method according to claim 6, wherein the number of times the control unit of the electronic device is activated is stored in a work area of a memory used by the control unit of the electronic device.
Electronic device timing method described in 1. 10. The electronic device according to claim 7, wherein the electronic device performs a predetermined operation according to the value of the integration time.
Electronic device timing method described in 1. 11. A storage medium storing a code of a program for realizing the electronic device clocking method according to claim 6. Description: