Data protection system for electronic postage meters having multiple non-volatile multiple memories

DETAILED DESCRIPTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a data protection system for an electronic postage meter having multiple NVMs.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a data protection system for a real time NVM during a power down cycle of the meter.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a power down protection circuit for disabling a real time NVM during the power down cycle of an electronic postage meter.
Briefly, in accordance with the present invention, a method and associated apparatus is provided for protecting the accounting data stored in an electronic postage meter having multiple NVMs for the storage of accounting data, including the steps of and associated apparatus for providing a first non-volatile memory; writing postage transaction accounting data into the first non-volatile memory in realtime during each trip cycle of the meter; providing a second non-volatile memory; writing postage transaction accounting data into the second non-volatile memory only during the power down cycle of the meter; and disabling the first non-volatile memory when the meter enters a power down cycle to prevent any further writing of data into the first non-volatile memory.
Advantageously, the first NVM is clamped to ground potential during the power down cycle.
Other objects, aspects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the detailed description considered in conjunction with the drawings, as follows: