Rolf wrote:

> Just as an aside, I love my Epson Dot-Matrix printer.... with 
> continuous-feed paper.
> 
> I have it hooked up to my linux server/firewall in the basement. I have 
> syslogd set up to print major errors and some security logs to the 
> printer. If there were ever a disk failure, or someone were to hack in 
> to my machine and 'corrupt' the logs I don't think they will be able to 
> rewind the printer and 'modify' that historical account.
> 
> Anyways, line-printing is the perfect solution to it, and no 'current' 
> printers out there can dump data one line at a time....
> 
> getting consumables for it is getting expensive now too though....

Here's where a good spot is for a flash card.  If your system can print 
to an RS232 port, hang a PIC out there that writes to a flash card - MMC 
or SD, etc.

What's your paper hold? Something like 60 lines per page with 72 
chars/line or there abouts?  At just under 5K bytes per page, each gig 
of flash could hold about 1/4 million pages worth of logs... of course, 
you don't get to hear the satisfying brrrraaapppppppp! every time the 
print head does it's thing.
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