I'm wondering if there is some way to capture the data that is diplayed on the
screen -- not as a graphics file, but as the actual ascii code that is being
displayed.

Your description does not include evidence that any ASCii code is
transmitted to your computer. What the web site sends and your
computer receives may be only graphics data.

It is certainly possible for you to capture the image that is on the
computer screen as a bitmap. Various free programs are available for
that purpose. I personally use a program named "Capture" to do such
things.

It is probably also possible for you to capture the actual files in
the website that you access, including the file that contains the
image you see. I personally use a program named "SiteSnag" to do
this. What SiteSnag yields varies a lot depending on how the website
is organized. However, there is a good chance that the file that
contains the image you see is merely a bitmap, tif, gif, etc.

If you can get the data as a tif file, you may be able to translate it
to ASCii with an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program.


Bill Starbuck (MVP)