![](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/?action=dlattach;attach=1539112;image)
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Apologies for the really crap picture of my HP 5055A Digital Recorder, seems to have escaped detailed photography and is currently in storage.
Probably not worth the wait. ![Laughing :-DD](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley_laughing.gif.pagespeed.ce._hfWAz_QHO.gif)
David
Oh, interesting ! Was worth the wait for me
![ThumbsUp :-+](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/icon_smile_thumbsup.gif.pagespeed.ce._JElyJQqdB.gif)
I have a growing collection of Nixie tube TE that have a printer output, and I would like to make use of them to log data. Am planning on designing a little gizmo with an 8 bit MCU that I could plug to the back of these TE to read the output, send it to the future lab desktop computer via a serial port, for logging, analysis, plotting graphs etc. Serial port could also be used to configure the gizmo. Gizmo would also have an analog output to drive a chart recorder or XY plotter.
My TE are diverse and use different connectors and probably different control signals as well I imagine, so I would need to study them all to see how I can get the gizmo to work with all of them, and build enough flexibility into it to accommodate future instruments that might have different expectations still.
So... it's cool to see your BCD printers of the day, first time I see one. Datasheet implies that it's designed for not just HP equipment, and that controls signals in the industry / across various manufacturers, are probably not as random / diverse as I feared they might be, which is good and will male the design of my gizmo easier.
I hope you will restore your printer and attach it to some of your TE and post it here. A little YT video maybe... would love that !
![Cheesy :D](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/xcheesy.gif.pagespeed.ic.KPzuH4J-TG.png)