What is vampire tap? - Definition from Whatis.com

A vampire tap is a connection to a coaxial cable in which a hole is drilled through the outer shield of the cable so that a clamp can be connected to the inner conductor of the cable. A vampire tap is used to connect each device to Thicknet coaxial cable in the bus topology of an Ethernet 10BASE-T local area network. A different connection approach, the BNC, is used for the thinner coaxial cable known as Thinnet.

This was last updated in October 2000

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