An image forming apparatus includes an image forming section, a page memory
for storing at least one page of image data to be transferred to the image
forming section, and a DMA (Direct Memory Access) controller. The page
memory is implemented by a DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory). The DMA
controller continuously transfers, in response to a single DMA request
received from the image forming section, a plurality of words of image
data with the same row address from the DRAM to the image forming section
at a time by DMA transfer. The apparatus is capable of transferring image
data from the DRAM to the image forming section at a high speed by DMA
transfer. This is also true when the image data are rotated by 90 degrees
or 270 degrees. Further, the apparatus is capable of accurately setting a
position where the image forming section starts recording image data on a
line.
