🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <90045.160...@psuvm.psu.edu> BRL...@psuvm.psu.edu (Ben Liblit) writes:
>I don't know if this counts as a terminal hack, but....
>
>I was hired last summer to transfer some ancient records from an Apple ][+ onto
>a DEC.  The Apple was using old PFS: FILE software, which has very proprietary
>storage formats.  So what did I do?  I ran a serial cable from the Apple's
>printer port (a card, actually) right into the DEC.  I told PFS: FILE to print
>everything, letting *it* take care of decoding the information.  Meanwhile, I
>had the DEC thinking that the cable ran to a terminal, and had it logging
>everything that came across.
>
>And the best thing was, it actually worked.
>
>                      Ben Liblit
>                      BRL102 @ psuvm.bitnet -- BRL102 @ psuvm.psu.edu
>                      "Fais que tes reves soient plus longs que la nuit."

I did the same thing to a Summa/4 attached to a Siemens phone switch. My
client could not handle the volume of paper generated by the damn thing. 
The vendor said there was no way to download the records to a PC database,
so I hooked up the printer port of the Summa (serial) to the serial port
of the PC and had the Summa print it's most detailed report while running
Crosstalk on the PC to capture the whole thing. A quick program to parse
the resulting file for records and fields finished the job!

Fred B.

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Fred Buechler                           fr...@llama.rtech.com
Devil Mountain Consulting, Inc          71261...@compuserve.com
Concord, California                     # include <DISCLAIMERS.STD>
"Never test for an error condition that you don't know how to handle"
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