Reviving an old pen plotter

Nov 20, 2012 2 Replies
U

I'd like to revive an old B size pen plotter that can use either HPGL version one or GPGL commands. An old Windows 2000 Professional computer will be the host, but I'm having trouble finding usable drivers within my "recreational" budget, which is very small.



Graphtec offers drivers for their current plotters, but there seems to be no way to dumb down the language and resolution to match the old plotter. Likewise, Older Roland drivers are said to support plain HPGL plotters but the driver, once installed, gives no hint of any such option.



I'm aware of Winline and will probably try it, but since this is just for fun the price is an obstacle.



Thanks for reading, any guidance appreciated!



bob prohaska


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If I was doing something like this I'd probably make a black box that sat between the PC and the plotter to perform the command translations on the fly. The "black box" could be an otherwise unused old notebook PC or a it could be spun up from a microcontroller. Sort of depends on what you have sitting around in the spare parts bin...

Rich Webb Norfolk, VA
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GOTO "printers" and select HP for tpe, then select FIRST item in list which is for the HP-GL/2 printer. ..at least this is what my version of Win2K pro SP4 has..

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