Hacked Gadgets Forum

February 8, 2008

HP Printer Prank - Change the LCD Display Message

at 5:23 am. Filed under Computer Hacks, Funny Hacks

 

Office pranks, ah these can be quite fun. They can actually become quite competitive also, employees always trying to outdo the other. I have come across some very unique and fun pranks, but this one has to be one of my favorites.

Scott from OdeToCode.com decided to "hack" an office HP Laser Jet Printer. His prank of choice, was to change the LCD default system messages to something completely different and fun.

"I wasn’t sure if I should put this article under “Code” or “Humor”, since it contains both. Ultimately it is much funnier than technical, but full source is included for you to use in your own environment."

Link: OdeToCode


 


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13 Responses to “HP Printer Prank - Change the LCD Display Message”

  1. Turd Says:

    I seen that on The X-Files lol

  2. Krtek Says:

    Great hack! Nice, funny and useful! Under Unix you can simplify it by a one-liner:

    message=”Will print for beer”;echo -e”\x1B%-12345X@PJL RDYMSG DISPLAY = \”$message\”\r\n\x1B%-12345X\r\n” | nc 9100

    Please send more hacks like this!

    Greetings
    Krtek

  3. Rocky Says:

    I have three cats.

  4. Redleader36 Says:

    I have read that you can do this to a printer that is connected via usb or parallel. How do you encode the pjl commands into a print job? Is there another way to do this to a usb/parallel connected printer?

  5. Redleader36 Says:

    Never mind, i did some digging. At http://www.hack-mod.com/projects.php?page=printer there is a how-to AND a little c++ program to change the ready message on usb/parallel connected printers.

  6. Steven Says:

    [root@localhost ~]# cat cheese.pl
    #!/usr/bin/perl

    # cheese.pl
    # by Steven B. 2007/04/01
    # based on a script by:
    # Yaakov

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    sub I_am_interactive { return -t STDIN && -t STDOUT; }

    my $random_number = int(rand(4));
    if ($random_number == 2)
    {
    print “Hit on number $random_number, exiting..\n” if I_am_interactive();
    exit;
    }
    my $sleep_time = int(rand(2400));
    if ($ARGV[0]) { $sleep_time = 0; }
    print “Sleeping for: $sleep_time seconds\n” if I_am_interactive();
    sleep($sleep_time);

    my @sayings =
    (
    “Insert Coin”,
    “Insert Cheese”,
    “Im Sad..”,
    “”,
    “Low Monkeys”,
    “Insert Monkeys”,
    “Insert Butter & Jam”,
    “Free The Ink!!”,
    “My Cousin Is A Toaster”,
    “Load Soy Latte”,
    “”,
    “Paper Tastes Funny Today”,
    “Free Hugs..”,
    “**** CBM BASIC V2 ****\n3583 BYTES FREE\nREADY.”,
    “Toner Tastes Funny Today”,
    “”,
    “Press OK Button for Pacman”,
    “Flower Power Mode”,
    “Incoming Fax…”,
    “Cheese Mode”,
    “”,
    );

    # put your network printer IPs here.
    my @ips = (”10.46.15.31″,”10.46.15.32″,”10.46.15.33″);

    foreach my $ip (@ips)
    {

    my $peeraddr = $ip;
    my $rdymsg = $sayings[rand @sayings];
    chomp $peeraddr;

    if ($ARGV[0]) { print “clearing…\n”; $rdymsg = “”; }

    print “Going to contact IP: $ip\n” if I_am_interactive();
    print “Going to send: $rdymsg\n” if I_am_interactive();

    use IO::Socket;
    my $socket = IO::Socket::INET->new(
    PeerAddr => $peeraddr,
    PeerPort => “9100″,
    Proto => “tcp”,
    Type => SOCK_STREAM
    ) or die “Could not create socket: $!”;

    my $data = <<EOJ
    \e%-12345X\@PJL JOB
    \@PJL RDYMSG DISPLAY=”$rdymsg”
    \@PJL EOJ
    \e%-12345X
    EOJ
    ;

    print $socket $data;
    }

  7. HP Printer Prank - Change the LCD Display Message at toshism Says:

    […] straight stolen from Hacked Gadgets - DIY Tech Blog […]

  8. inedible Says:

    you can just telnet to port 9100 of the printer and type or paste: @PJL RDYMSG DISPLAY=”HELP IM STUCK IN A PRINTER”

  9. king of muffins Says:

    LOL nice find statt tot uber pwnage :)

  10. Michael Says:

    HP WebJetAdmin will allow you to do this as well. Along with displaying the printer’s IP address or Hostname.

  11. steventree Says:

    that the to our they had even know all what stretching

  12. George Says:

    I’ve seen a great product for projections onto water. Check the link bellow
    www.prina.net

  13. Billy Says:

    How can something be ‘very unique’???

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