pollack@strawberry.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jordan B Pollack) (12/18/89)
I seem to have innocently started a discussion which is getting deeper and deeper into Postscript cracker technology, such as ROM monitors, Superexec mode, the SNOOP command, and error-handling Trojan horses! (Its going to take me some time to figure out the lingo; The last trap-door I opened was APL/360 "I-beams".) After discovering that the guy who wrote the TV Typewriter Cookbook is into deep reverse (polish) engineering, I'm sure that Captain Crunch himself will soon join the fray! Two good points were made alone the way: 1) Modern Laser printers (other than NeXT's) contain good computing cycles which are just often sitting idle and could be harnessed for useful things like computing PI, or 300dpi Mandelbrot displays; Hopefully the interrupt structure is well-documented! 2) If a company screws up the boundary between its trade secret and trade public, it can create all sorts of depravity, rather than useful economic activity at the fringes of its business. The question for today is: Do I need to get as depraved as Lancaster to figure out how to a) hook an NTX to a Sparcstation via a SCSI interface (which I'm told is only for hard-disks) or b) Turn on/off Diablo 630 mode (for retrograde PC programs) via software (without burning EEproms)? Jordan -=- Jordan Pollack Laboratory for AI Research CIS Dept/OSU 2036 Neil Ave email: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu Columbus, OH 43210 Fax/Phone: (614) 292-4890
woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) (12/20/89)
In article <75025@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>, pollack@strawberry.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jordan B Pollack) writes: > > I seem to have innocently started a discussion which is getting deeper > and deeper into Postscript cracker technology, such as ROM monitors, > Superexec mode, the SNOOP command, and error-handling Trojan horses! > (Its going to take me some time to figure out the lingo; The last > trap-door I opened was APL/360 "I-beams".) After discovering that the > guy who wrote the TV Typewriter Cookbook is into deep reverse (polish) > engineering, I'm sure that Captain Crunch himself will soon join the fray! > > Two good points were made alone the way: > > 1) Modern Laser printers (other than NeXT's) contain good computing > cycles which are just often sitting idle and could be harnessed for > useful things like computing PI, or 300dpi Mandelbrot displays; > Hopefully the interrupt structure is well-documented! > > 2) If a company screws up the boundary between its trade secret and > trade public, it can create all sorts of depravity, rather than > useful economic activity at the fringes of its business. > > > The question for today is: Do I need to get as depraved as Lancaster > to figure out how to a) hook an NTX to a Sparcstation via a SCSI > interface (which I'm told is only for hard-disks) or b) Turn on/off > Diablo 630 mode (for retrograde PC programs) via software (without > burning EEproms)? > > Jordan > -=- > Jordan Pollack Laboratory for AI Research > CIS Dept/OSU > 2036 Neil Ave email: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu > Columbus, OH 43210 Fax/Phone: (614) 292-4890 sure. You can start the HPlaserjet emulation mode and HPGL mode from withing PS, but the diablo mode is much harder. There is a way, however to do it. It involves diffrent ways on diffrent printers, but serverdict begin statusdict begin diablo (or) hplj (or) hpgl will in general start them up. diablo mode in some printers, can be started with diabloexec (as above). You can tell a lot, by simply hooking up to the laser over a serial cable, and then typeing in executive you then can say /serverdict load {== ==} forall and /statusdict load {== ==} forall and capturing the output. you will find the needed info there. I have been toying with the idea of using a SCSI port from one computer to dump code rapidly into the NTX. I don't have access to either, but it would appear to me, that one could write a routine to make ANYTHING connected to the SCSI port look like a hard disk, even if it is another computer. If that were done, perhaps, you could really harness this bugger. Cheers Woody.