29 Aug
2007
29 Aug
'07
2:07 p.m.
On 8/29/07, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
Fair enough.
Hmm... I did fiddle with plotters with Unix, VMS, and DOS, decades
ago, but I have to admit to never attempting to do it with Windows.
On Wed, 29 Aug 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I've seen serial printers get plugged into parallel ports on PCs.
I've even had untrained lab staff ask for gender changers, in order to be
able to use "those other ports" (DB25M) for parralel printers!
Did they remember to ask for a hammer to make sure they were seated
firmly in the wrong ports? ;-)
Indeed, though
it _might_ be possible to get a USB-RS232 dongle to
work, if you can get the plotter to function with various hardware
handshake lines shorted or tied together.
I am NOT going to attempt to talk a newbie through THAT! I don't
ever remember seeing OS-level _plotter_ drivers.
Some earlier versions of Windoze (3.10?) purported to. Monte Hanrahan and
I were going to hook up a Draftmaster I to a PC, but before we got to it,
the college administation came through one weekend, and dumpstered "all
that junk", even the stuff that we had in the glass display case!
Ow!
OTOH, perhaps my DraftMaster II _was_ "all that junk" - I got it from
Uni surplus for $25 after it was marked down from $100, since it
wouldn't print a test page on command. Turned out to be a jammed pen
in the carousel. I'd love to run across a take-up motor and spool for
it - right now, it's limited to 3' or 4'-long plots. With the
optional take-up kit, you can plot on the entire roll, since the Y
motors don't have to support the entire weight of the output side of
the paper.
-ethan