ELECTRONIC POSTAGE METER HAVING MULTIPLE NON-VOLATILE MEMORIES FOR STORING DIFFERENT HISTORICAL INFORMATION REFLECTING POSTAGE TRANSACTIONS

摘要

ELECTRONIC POSTAGE METER HAVING MULTIPLE NON-VOLATILE MEMORIES FOR STORING DIFFERENT HISTORICAL INFORMATION REFLECTING POSTAGE TRANSACTIONS A method and associated apparatus is provided for storing different historical information reflecting the postage transactions of an electronic postage meter, comprising the steps of and associated apparatus for providing a first non-volatile memory, providing a second non-volatile memory having a larger data storage capacity than the first nonvolatile memory with individually addressable memory locations for storing information regarding each postage meter transaction on a real time basis, sequentially writing historical information corresponding to each postage meter transaction in a different memory location in the second non-volatile memory in real time as each postage meter transaction occurs to provide a historical record of each postage transaction so that two different records of historical information regarding the postage transactions are provided in non-volatile memory with the first non-volatile memory providing a cumulative historical record reflecting the postage transactions prior to a power down cycle and the second non-volatile memory providing a sequential historical record of each individual postage transaction. Advantageously, the last individually addressable memory location of the second non-volatile memory is interconnected to the first individually addressable memory location of the second nonvolatile memory for sequentially re-using the individual addressable memory locations to write accounting data therein to provide a continuous historical record of a predetermined number of previous postage transactions as measured backward in time from the last postage transaction.