A vampire tap (also called a piercing tap) was a device for physically connecting a station, typically a computer, to a network that used

10BASE5 10BASE5 (also known as thick Ethernet or thicknet) was the first commercially available variant of Ethernet. The technology was standardized in 1982 as IEEE 802.3. 10BASE5 uses a thick and stiff coaxial cable up to in length. Up to 100 stati ...

cabling. This device clamped onto and "bit" into the cable (hence the name "

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mi ...

"), inserting a probe through a hole drilled using a special tool through the outer shielding to contact the inner conductor, while other spikes bit into the outer conductor. The vampire tap usually had an integrated AUI (

Attachment Unit Interface The Attachment Unit Interface (AUI) is a physical and logical interface defined in the original IEEE 802.3 standard for 10BASE5 Ethernet and the previous DIX standard. The physical interface consists of a 15-pin D-subminiature connection tha ...

), from which a short multicore cable connected to the network card in the station. Vampire taps allowed new connections to be made on a given physical cable while the cable was in use. This allowed administrators to expand

bus topology A bus network is a network topology in which nodes are directly connected to a common half-duplex link called a bus. A host on a bus network is called a ''station''. In a bus network, every station will receive all network traffic, and the ...

network sections without interrupting communications. Without a vampire tap, the cable had to be cut and connectors had to be attached to both ends.

See also