Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpfcso!hpfcdc!rer
From: rer@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Rob Robason)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Printer Eavesdropper
Message-ID: <5570330@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Date: 15 Nov 89 17:53:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: hpfcdc.5570330
References: <330025@vantage.UUCP>
Organization: HP Ft. Collins, Co.
Lines: 23

> A user claims to have heard of a "box" that allows one to capture print
> images sent to a printer.  This happens to be on an older HP1000, but my
> impression is that the class of devices is a general one.  (In fact, if
> it does exist, it may be from the PC world ...).

> Anyway, one connects this device so that it reads the data on the way to
> the printer -- you plug this into the printer and then the printer cable
> into this.  Pass-through mode, as it were ...  The printer does not know
> about the box.

> Has anyone heard of such a device?  Could you give me manufacturer's
> name/phone# or any other info on it?

> Ray Liere

I remember a few years back a company made an HP-IB "printer spooler"
that sucked up the printer/plotter bytes into RAM so the CPU would not
hang (directed at single user systems like BASIC and PASCAL
workstations).  The spooler then fed the data to the device while the
CPU could go do other stuff.  I haven't kept up to know if such devices
are still available.  Is this what you're interested in?

Rob Robason