Command: inklevel

  USBDOS is a collection of different USB drivers and tools:
  INKLEVEL is a Printer Ink Fill Percentage Display Program for DOS.
  It works with many Epson- and HP-compatible Printers.

Syntax:

  INKLEVEL [LPTx] [LPTx] ...
    where [LPTx] is a Printer Port number between LPT1 and LPT9.
  INKLEVEL
    with no LPT numbers after it will display Ink Quantity information
    for all Epson- and HP-compatible Printers that it can find.

Options:

  INKLEVEL is a program designed to show you the amount of ink remaining
  in your printer cartridges. Many modern ink jet and laser printers have
  a method of "downloading" this data from the printer, though the printer
  manufacturers almost never provide a way for you to see the data without
  using a special Windows program. As far as I know, INKLEVEL is the only
  program available anywhere that will let you view your printer ink
  levels in DOS.
  In order for INKLEVEL to work properly, however, you must have USBPRINT
  installed in memory first. USBPRINT provides certain extended printer
  BIOS functions that INKLEVEL needs to communicate with the printer
  properly. Without USBPRINT (or some equivalent program developed in
  the future) installed in memory, INKLEVEL will not function.
  Currently, INKLEVEL only works with some Hewlett Packard and Epson
  printers, because those are the only ones I have ever had access to for
  testing. I strongly encourage someone to take INKLEVEL and "run with
  it", adding support for various other models and manufacturers of
  printers. I will not be doing this myself unless I personally come
  across a printer that I want to support for some reason, and that is
  not likely to happen any time soon. Unlike most of my other programs
  (written in ASM), INKLEVEL is written in C++ so it should be relatively
  easy for someone to update and improve it. My purpose for writing
  INKLEVEL was to relieve some of the frustration I had with not being
  able to view this information from DOS, and to "show off" some of the
  capabilities of USBPRINT.
  By default, INKLEVEL will show you the ink level status of all printers
  (USB and parallel) that it can find.
  For example:
    INKLEVEL
  If you have more than one printer, but only want to see the status of a
  particular one, you must provide an LPT number, between LPT1 and LPT9.
  For example:
    INKLEVEL LPT1
  If you have several printers but only want to see the status of one or
  two of them, you can also provide more than one LPT number,
  for example:
    INKLEVEL LPT1 LPT4
  INKLEVEL requires USBPRINT to be installed in memory before it will
  function. If you do not need or want USBPRINT to be installed in memory
  permanently (for instance, if you have no USB printers), you can set
  yourself up a batch file to show you the ink levels that looks
  something like this:
     USBPRINT               Install USBPRINT into memory
     INKLEVEL               Show ink levels for all printers
     USBPRINT Uninstall     Uninstall USBPRINT from memory
  What INKLEVEL displays will be an identification of the port and
  printer type, followed by a cryptic string, followed by the ink levels
  of all the different ink cartridges both in simple percentages (numbers)
  and as a graph. The "cryptic string" is the data that INKLEVEL downloads
  from the printer that contains the ink level percentages embedded in it.
  It would be nice if the printer simply said something like,
  "Red: 20%", but none of them ever do that. The ink percentages
  are encoded in some special way, unique to the manufacturer, and some-
  times to the model, of the printer. INKLEVEL displays the string so that
  I could see it as I was troubleshooting INKLEVEL during development,
  and I left it in there just as an "added feature" so that you could see
  what's going on behind the scenes.
  Every printer I've ever seen that tells you what the ink level is lies
  about it. As you use the printer, the ink level will go down slowly
  until it reaches 0%, which should mean the printer won't work
  any more.
  I've been able to print hundreds of pages on every printer I've had,
  even after it told me it didn't have any ink left. I know part (if not
  all) of this is a marketing ploy to get you to buy more ink than you
  really need (Epson has been sued over this). The bottom line is no
  matter what the printer tells you (through INKLEVEL), you shouldn't
  necessarily believe it.

  For more information see:
    https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/drivers/usbdos/-/tree/master/DOC/DOSUSB
  OR:
    C:\FREEDOS\DOC\usbintro.doc (too big for edit, please use
    another editor, e.g. Blocek!)
  OR:
    https://bretjohnson.us/

Examples:

  usbprint
  inklevel LPT2
  usbprint uninstall

Command: inklevel

Syntax:

Options:

Examples:

See also: