plotter for system 7

[madmann]

I am running minicad on os7 or os9 and i would like a wide formate plotter can anyone help. how do i get the plotter connected running.

 

[II2II]

I'm guessing that the program comes with drivers for HPGL plotters, and that you will need a wide-format plotter with a serial interface and HPGL compatability.

 

[madmann]

no the plotter driver is the key minicad comes with no drivers.

so it is a hardware compatibility issue. like what platters were being used on mac up until about 98

 

[II2II]

I'm not sure it's that easy. Plotters are functionally different from printers, and that creates problems. Think of it this way: you have plotters, which pretty much exect data to be sent as a vector format. Similar to PostScript, right? Well, not really. At the end of the day, every printer will rasterize the data. Sometimes it is done by the computer. Sometimes it is done by the printer. So if a printer is told to draw a line that is 2 points wide, it doesn't matter since it is eventually rasterized.

But plotters just draw lines. They don't care about the thickness of the line because they cannot do anything about it (short of using another pen). I have seen some software bugger this up royally, and actually send two lines to represent the inner and outer edge of a curve. Which, I suspect, is why every program that I have used has come with some sort of plot-manager and its own set of drivers.

 

[wally]

no the plotter driver is the key minicad comes with no drivers.
so it is a hardware compatibility issue. like what platters were being used on mac up until about 98

When you create some artwork and do a Save As, what output file format options do you have in your version of minicad? Also, are there any menu choices that say plot, rather than print?

The plotters used with Macs were many, because Microspot put together a broad package of drivers and plotter utility programs, and offered them in the MacPlot product as well as licensing a subset of the MacPlot functionality to various vendors. IIRC ClarisCAD and MacDrawII both use embedded Microspot software to do plotting to HP and Houston Instrument plotters. If a CAD program has an option to produce an HPGL format text file, something as simple as a terminal emulator can be used to dump the text to a serial port connected HPGL accepting plotter, which will hardware handshake to control the pace of HPGL instruction fetching in sync with the slow plotting operations.

 

[register]

If you do not need to have a plotter you might also consider a large format inkjet printer, like HP DesignJet. This would be more versatile in use than a plotter, and easier to maintain. Several old machines have a serial port or Ethernet option and a Macintosh driver available. Some are PostScript ready, what enhances the output quality of vector graphics, usually. If you find a cheap DesignJet without a PostScript option, you might use a second Mac running a raster image processiong software as a print server (a LC 475 or better does a good job here, after configuration even without KVM and even without VRAM). This is only suitable if your CAD software supports output to a standard printer, of course.

 

[shred]

Roland (yes the musical instrument people) used to make a range of plotters for Macs in the 1990s. They were connected via the serial port and were moderately popular at the time.

x2 re the HP designjet / paintjet range.

Weirdest plotter I came across on a Mac had a small cutter instead of a pen and cut a stencil from a rubber sheet. It had custom software and was used for making tombstones! The rubber stencil was placed over the stone and sandblasted so the rock would be removed where letters were cut out of the rubber. "here lies..."

 

[II2II]

That's sorta what my mother uses her plotter for. Only for stencils for painting around the house, rather than tomb-stones. Some of the signs that you see on businesses are made the same way, though most are just apply the rubber sheet directly to the surface and leave it at that. It's all actually quite cool.

As for Roland, I will always remember them for dot matrix printers.

 

[Bunsen]

I just sold a bunch of HP laserjets and inkjets on ebay. While I was looking up specs, I noticed a lot of the higher-end ones had HPGL drivers. You can find the auction by searching for member name computerbankvictoria and selecting closed auctions.

 

[wally]

...can anyone help. how do i get the plotter connected running.

Or, you can talk to the the plotterdriverguru himself:

http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2007-February/074109.html

 

[TylerEss]

I know that a cheapie CAD program, 'Key CAD Complete' has built-in drivers for several kinds of plotters...