Abstract: A postage metering system comprising: printing apparatus, the printing apparatus including structure for printing a postage indicia having a first portion including a postage value and a second portion including a town circle; accounting apparatus, the accounting including structure for accounting for the postage value, the accounting apparatus including structure for storing data descriptive of a bit mapped image of the second portion having a predetermined resolution, the accounting apparatus including structure for transferring the descriptive data to the printing apparatus; the printing apparatus including structure for requesting the postage value from the accounting apparatus and receiving therefrom the first portion and thus the postage value, the printing apparatus including structure for generating the bit mapped image of the second portion based on the descriptive data thereof, and the printing apparatus including structure for merging the first portion and bit mapped image of the second portion for

Abstract: A mailing system is includes of a mailing machine operating under the control of a microcontroller having a communication port with a first channel and a second channel. The mailing system also includes a meter vault which operates under the control a microcontroller mounted in a secure housing and having a communication port with a first channel and a second channel. A printer is included which operates under the control of a microcontroller mounted in a secure housing and having a communication port having a first channel and a second channel. A printer interface is included for providing a number of independent communication paths. A first path provides communication between first channel of the mailing machine and the first channel of the meter vault. A second path provides communication between the second channel of the mailing machine and the second channel of the printer, and a third path for providing communications between the second channel of meter vault and the first channel of the printer.

Abstract: A method of transferring update data from a microcomputer to a memory device having a transportable non-volatile memory median requiring that the transportable non-volatile memory median is divided into a plurality of sectors. Update data is to be written to data sectors of the transportable non-volatile memory median in accordance with a sector map. One of the sectors to be updated is the directory sector and another one of the sectors to be updated is the file access table sector. The microcomputer is programmed to reserve a specified number of sectors as a recovery area wherein some of the sectors of the recovery area are reserved for the sector map and other sectors of the recovery area are reserved for storage of the update data. The microcomputer identifies if a sector map resides in the recovery area. If no sector map resides in the sector map area of the recovery area, the microcomputer proceeds to identify which of the sectors are to be updated and generating a sector map accordingly.