Graph recorder for etching?

[head_spaz]

Dang deal insomnia's got me thinking... again.
And I gots me an idear. A strange one this time...

I have an old Lowrance X-15 Fish Finder / Depth Recorder. Sonar basically.
It's an old mechanical style graph recorder that uses a high voltage stylus attached to a spinning belt that strobes vertically as graph paper scrolls / spools underneath at a right angle. The stylus sparks up a storm while literally burning an image of the data onto the graph paper. It was quite the deal... twenty years ago.

What I'm wanting to know... is how to interface this puppy's input to my printer port, soze zat I can truly ETCH me some enclosures.

Here's a pic...

[Taylor]

Such a weird idea that I had to bump it for you. 

[deadastronaut]

+1   too mad to miss...

[amptramp]

Spark discharge machining has been around for decades.  The basics are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_discharge_machining

with a little more detail here:

http://www.edmmachining.com/

Note that machining metal requires large amounts of electricity - more than needed to blacken paper.  You can also do electrolytic machining that is a reverse plating process that removes metal locally.