HP DraftMaster I

My plotter, admittedly not exactly identical, but VERY similar, requires that you load the paper, press the button that says "chart hold" or some such, then, after allowing the plotter to look for the edges of the paper (an important step because it initializes the origin to the center of the paper), press "on-line" at which time the DTR light becomes really important. Now, the plotter will work from a null-modem arrangement if you use X-on/x-off but I've had my best luck with the cable hooked up differently. I'd go into detail, but that was with the old v3.22 OrCad drafting utility and it had to have a specially wired cable to work correctly. I've also opened the box and socketed and replaced the components on the little serial interface board, which uses a Z-80 Dart and some 1488 and 1489 drivers and receivers. If this little comm interface module isn't happy, the whole plotter knows about it and doesn't work well. Back in the late '80's, when I got mine, the HP support for these (they were still selling them) was terrible. No one really knew what was necessary to make them work. Nowadays, there's nobody there who'll even talk about them. If you want to test the thing thoroughly, you'll have to get some of the toilet paper that fits it, (mine only uses cut forms) making sure you still have the cutoff blade located in the little groove at the front and then load the paper in the paper path (straighforward, assume the obvious) and then send it various drawings which use different size paper in different orientation. These machines will feed the appropriate amount, but don't mind wasting paper, i.e. they feed the 36"-wide paper 14-15" for a portrait 'A'-size form, wasting most of the paper. That was the reason I got the single-sheet version. I don't need it to run all night unattended, but I do have to pay for the paper. You'll see that's not cheap. That may explain why the drawings in most manuals are so difficult to read, having been reduced from already-too-small drawings. The manuals may still be available somewhere, but I would get right on trying to find them if I were you. I made the purchase of my plotter contingent on complete manuals, so they were included. That became a condition after I found that Martin Marietta, after buying 20 or so of these still hadn't received a complete set of manuals even though each plotter was supposed to come with them. If you have access to a Windows box with AutoCad 12 on it (I don't have a later version to try this) you should be able to put it through its paces, as that has an internal plotter driver which operates independently of the one in WIndows. I've had no luck at all getting the Windows driver to do anything. I suspect (after watching the lights on the breakout box) that there is some incompatibility in the way they work their handshaking. Perhaps the '488 port will work for you, if you've got one with drivers in your system. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Doug Spence <hrothgar(a)total.net> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Wednesday, September 01, 1999 2:43 AM Subject: Re: HP DraftMaster I