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From: richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Resetting printers
Message-ID: <1991May16.062649.27568@pegasus.com>
Date: 16 May 91 06:26:49 GMT
References: <1991May10.213352.27548@slhisc.uucp> <1991May13.191734.12932@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Lines: 24

>>This seems reasonable, except that on all the laser
>>printers I deal with, there is a page counter maintained internally (and 
>>printed for information on the start page).  If this doesn't live in the 
>>EEROM and is therefore updated on a page basis, where does it live?  My
>>page counter is still going strong after 50000 pages!  
>
>If you read the manual for the Apple LaserWriter, it says that the page
>count is stored in a special way to avoid wearing out the EEPROM. My guess
>is that the information is spread across multiple locations so that each
>is written less often.

The manual for the LaserJet-3 Adobe PostScript cartridge (which may not
constitute a "regular" PS printer) says this:

	The page count is current as long as the printer is powered on.
	When the printer is powered off, the page count is rounded-down
	to the nearest 10 page increment and recorded in memory.  This
	value cannot be reset.

The printer does seem to take an extra moment or two to fully power down.


-- 
Richard Foulk		richard@pegasus.com