Problems plotting to 7470.exe ("missing comma")

Wow. That is a blast from the past. Do you have a GPIB bus analyser to see what gives?

You are probably looking at a small discreprancy between what the plotter emulator program expects and what the analyser sends. You may be better off grabbing the HPGL file with a simple PC program and then looking at it manually for syntax errors.

Probably a filehandle still open.

Small difference in the syntactic sugar somewhere along the line. The program complaining about the missing comma might well be right, but that is scant consolation. Is there a log commands to file option on that program ? It is decades since I used HPGL and real hardware 7470 & 7475s.

Regards, Martin Brown

This is going to sound really stupid, but is your mouse using the same IRQ as the port you are using for the inbound plot?

-mpm

Just remembered, and "No" this won't be particularly helpful, but it might put a smile on your face...

I (very occasionally) plot to an E-size pen plotter (HP DraftPro Plus) - They did not make very many of these. Yet Windows has a driver for it. (I know, weird huh?!)

In true Microsoft form, the first command sent is a "page eject" string, so is obviously a problem when you try to use the printer in single-sheet mode !! (Microsoft does some pretty stupid stuff sometimes!)

It was pretty aggrevating have to manually "trim" the Eject command before transmission, but I finally found an aftermarket driver that worked perfectly. (HP does not offer an XP driver for this plotter.)

I am wondering if you have a similar sort of problem, only in the reverse direction.? Good luck! -mpm

Nope, I don't :-(

I have a file. Tried to import it into my Mech CAD package which can read all those legacy thing. It only draws a small "Picasso" from that. Possibly this is a stream formatted for 7470 printers, ThinkJets and the like that isn't 100% HPGL. Got to find that out today. Of course, so that my plate overfloweth just this morning my wife's laptop croaked. Sounds like the HD is running at a very low speed. Darn!

7470 was the only program running. But it is prone to abort itself a lot. Slight error message, poof, gone.

Well, I've got the file and it sure doesn't look like pure old HPGL to me. But the ThinkJets always worked on it.

Same here. I used to take screen shots but that gets old. Thing is, I have yet to see an analyzer with the noise and dynamic performance of the 3577. The only gripe I have is its extremely loud "wind tunnel style" fan.

--
Regards, Joerg

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No :-)

One is #1, the other #7. Also, the mouse isn't used at all. You set

7470.exe to "wait for device data stream", the PC is doing nothing until data shows up on the GPIB bus.

--
Regards, Joerg

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Is it HP PCL data rather than HPGL?

I gather you have a linux installation - try the hp2xx utility.

For my GPIB "network" run from the prologix I ended up writing a little script in python (my first). It waits for some incoming data, then uses hp2xx and the "convert" utility to write out a numbered PNG file. I guess it does essentially the same as 7470.exe but I can fiddle it for my devices.

--

John Devereux

Wow, now that is true retro :-)

I remember. At a client one of their engineers wanted to have my schematic in super-duper-wallpaper size. "Ok, I'll go and catch the empty sheet". It was another brand, not HP, but same thing.

Later that day the same engineer went to unclog it. Someone else peeked over a cube wall "Hey, Joe, can you catch the empty sheet?" ... "Nooo!" ... clunk .... bzzzt .... *SPLAT*. Shirt ruined. Thou shalt not unclog a plotter with the RS232 cable still in there.

The strange thing is that John Miles specifically mentions the HP3577 in the manual for his 7470.exe program. Yet somehow this cannot work because 7470.exe isn't a full emulator for that old plotter. It does not natively understand HPGL. It's got some translation code in there but only for select analyzers not including the 3577. Really strange. Guess I'll write to John, just didn't want to bother him if someone in this NG has already figured out how to do it. I can't be the only analog guy using a 3577. Creators of such SW usually get bombarded with requests like "How can I connect my drill press to it ...?" :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

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Who knows, says HP-GL in the manual, followed by a list of plotters that will work. Also, it mentions that HP LaserJets with PCL have HPGL as a subset and can print that as well. But the old HP-III went over the bridge a few years ago.

Unfortunaetly not in the lab and my Prologix isn't the Ethernet kind.

Thanks, I'll have to check that out. I was able to store one plot before the usual abort and then I could try to untangle it here on Ubuntu in a virtual machine.

--
Regards, Joerg

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Firing up my trusty old HP3577 and acquiring some plots, I notice that the third character in the plot files is a ^C (Between the initial LB command and the first semicolon). The hp2xx program croaks on that, and likely so does 7470.exe. It works fine when I remove the first four bytes: "LB^C;".

Cheers, Jeroen Belleman

This is how my data stream looks:

Or as a pdf:

Appears to be pretty hosed :-(

--
Regards, Joerg

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There's "PrintGL" an old DOS and Windows program that's a printer driver to output HPGL in various flavors to printers or graphics file formats. It'll work as a command line utility for file conversion. It's been around long enough that it may be able to deal with various quirks. Ravitz Software or something like that. (The first item to come up if you google "printgl").

Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com

al

. r

Heh heh, a few of the gang was at the old Test Lab parking lot sale. There were no takers for a pile of HP bus analyzers, so they dumped them at $20, which for Test Lab is free. Do I miss that sale or what? I bought two 334s, both worked, so I gave one away as a wedding gift. The groom liked it, but the bride was not amused.

I never used the HP 3577. It sounds a bit long in the tooth for simple devices, but is probably good for op amps and systems.

I believe that they shut down the Linda Vista Ave. location at around the same time that Haltek closed down... they might have had the same landlord as Haltek, and suffered from the same "OK, I'm selling the whole property, get out!" problem.

The "testlabco.com" domain is now owned by DoveBid, the industrial liquidator / auction house (who were also, for a while, the new tenants of the building that Halted was forced out of).

I suspect that Test Lab Co. is no more.

There was a Test Equipment Corp. over on Old Middlefield Road in Mountain View (somewhat under a mile away) for several years. If I recall correctly they vacated that store about a year ago - their sign disappeared and there's a different industrial supplier in that building now.

--
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Hi, Joerg --

Sorry for the cryptic messages and poor error handling. The human- factors team will be disciplined accordingly. :)

Usually the "missing comma, malformed data" message means that you haven't set your instrument up for HPGL output at all; it is either configured to talk to a non-HP plotter, or it's sending PCL or Epson printer codes instead of HPGL. I looked at the .plt file in the zipfile you linked to elsewhere, and that appears to be what's going on.

I don't have a 3577A myself, but at some point, someone reported that they were able to get it to work, and sent me a plot from theirs. It's included in the c:\\program files\\ke5fx\\gpib\\sample hpgl files subdirectory.

I'm always happy to take a look at problematic .plt files if you'll email them to me via the link in the helpfile. They are usually easy enough to diagnose... although that renderer is a major kludge, so there isn't always a way to make plots from specific instruments look good.

I don't have any other way to post to Usenet these days; if he doesn't get this message, can someone please reply and quote the whole thing?

-- john, KE5FX

John Miles, KE5FX wrote:

I think I'm on Joerg's pre-fab'd whitelist, so let's give this a try.

Besides Google, there are other Port 80 access points to Usenet which allow posting:

*-*-*-5-*-per-day+Latency+ASCII+aren't+u=nable+*-ad+monospaced+clickable+reading+*-*-*-mangled+threading+zzz+schemat=ic+NO+Morons+qq-qq+uu-uu+*-delete-*-*-*-OT

Thanks, John! The documentation in the 3577 manual is paltry, roughly one paragraph and it just says HPGL. But that doesn't mean it's compatible or anything. Anyhow, I believe I have the occasional stuck bit and that may be because the Prologix' high threshold is 3V. Way high for old TTL logic. Abdul (who designed the Prologix) sent me modified code for the uC in there. I'll try that after lunch. The adapter must be removed for that and in the rack here that requires major shuffling and contortions. Occasionally followed by a sharp back pain ...

Thanks, Jeff, your post came through. I don't have a whitelist, would be difficult to do with Thunderbird. It's sad that I had to block Google but the spam was becoming excessive and the guys at Google did not listen. IMHO it's a domain to avoid.

John, I don't exactly remember the domain but AFAIK there is a news server in Germany that is either free or really low cost. If you want to know I could ask in a German NG. Just let me know. I can receive email from Google domains. My email address is in my link below. Or use the one in the header and delete "notthis" and "removethis".

*-*-*-5-*-per-day+Latency+ASCII+aren't+unable+*-ad+monospaced+clickable+reading+*-*-*-mangled+threading+zzz+schematic+NO+Morons+qq-qq+uu-uu+*-delete-*-*-*-OT

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Use another domain or send PM.

*-*-*-5-*-per-day+Latency+ASCII+aren't+unable+*-ad+monospaced+clickable+reading+*-*-*-mangled+threading+zzz+schematic+NO+Morons+qq-qq+uu-uu+*-delete-*-*-*-OT

Thanks for all your help, guys. Abdul (the designer of the Prologix) had the idea of turning on the pull-up resistors inside the uC and ... bingo! Probably not much threshold margin but lo and behold the HPGL file appears to be ok now ...

and the result looks clean ...

So if anyone else has this issue look at the Prologix site or write for a released code. Abdul is very responsive. I wish customer service was like that at every business.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Use another domain or send PM.

Hi, Joerg --

Sorry for the cryptic messages and poor error handling. The human- factors team will be disciplined accordingly. :)

Usually the "missing comma, malformed data" message means that you haven't set your instrument up for HPGL output at all; it is either configured to talk to a non-HP plotter, or it's sending PCL or Epson printer codes instead of HPGL. I looked at the .plt file in the zipfile you linked to elsewhere, and that appears to be what's going on.

I don't have a 3577A myself, but at some point, someone reported that they were able to get it to work, and sent me a plot from theirs. It's included in the c:\\program files\\ke5fx\\gpib\\sample hpgl files subdirectory.

I'm always happy to take a look at problematic .plt files if you'll email them to me via the link in the helpfile. They are usually easy enough to diagnose... although that renderer is a major kludge, so there isn't always a way to make plots from specific instruments look good.

I don't have any other way to post to Usenet these days; if he doesn't get this message, can someone please reply and quote the whole thing?

--- done ---

-- john, KE5FX

Unless my brain rot is worse than usual that is an address string to set a printer / plotter at address 3 to listen.