31 Aug
1999
31 Aug
'99
2:25 a.m.
Hi,
I thought I'd break in amongst all the big-brained stuff about part
design and announce to the world that I've garbage-picked a Hewlett
Packard DraftMaster I (7595A).
It was easy to get home because it was only two streets over, and the
wheels roll nicely.
It went downhill really well, so I'm considering entering it in next
year's Soap Box Derby.
I'm also planning on building some shelves into it, to justify its space
requirements.
The machine DOES work. I plugged it into my Amiga, and managed to get
it to draw a bicycle from an old PD CAD package off a magazine disk. It
keeps chewing on the flimsy paper I've got, though.
It has an HPIB port on it, so I'll have to write a HPGL driver for my
PET one of these days. ;)
Anyone know how old this thing is? HP's web site lists "DraftMaster" as
one of their trademarks, but I couldn't find much else out about it.
I used to work as a CAD operator at one of the big engineering firms in
downtown Montreal, so this is a cool find.
--
Doug Spence Hrothgar's Cool Old Junk Page:
hrothgar(a)total.net http://www.total.net/~hrothgar/museum/
31 Aug
31 Aug
5:47 p.m.
On Tue, 31 Aug 1999, Joe wrote:
Now that is sad... I have a few plotters in my collection, including a
7586B unit with the roll feed option. Now, granted they are no good for
printing wall sized 'photo-realistic' posters, (which is what the large
format inkjets at work seem to spend a lot of time doing) but for working
drawings and such they are just fine and (IMHO) a great deal more fun to
watch than the carriage on one of the 'PrintJet' units wandering back and
forth...
Great fun actually in demos driven off of an old version of AutoCAD set
for full 'Pen optimization'. Give it a large multi-layered drawing (the
starship Enterprise is a good one) and watch people stare it as the pen
runs all over the drawing area drawing apparently random line segments for
a good long time until it finally starts to resemble something
recognizable.
I always wondered just what their definition of 'optimization' really
was... B^}
-jim
---
jimw(a)computergarage.org
The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
At 01:25 AM 8/31/99 -0500, Doug wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I thought I'd break in amongst all the big-brained stuff about part
>design and announce to the world that I've garbage-picked a Hewlett
>Packard DraftMaster I (7595A).
>
>It went downhill really well, so I'm considering entering it in next
>year's Soap Box Derby.
I hope you are kidding... B^}
<snippage...>
I used to work
as a CAD operator at one of the big engineering firms in
downtown Montreal, so this is a cool find.
Yes, they're NICE plotters. Unfortunately, everyone is throwing them out
and replacing them with ink jets. I rescued two of them but couldn't
even give them away. 
6:09 p.m.
At 01:25 AM 8/31/99 -0500, Doug wrote:
Hi,
I thought I'd break in amongst all the big-brained stuff about part
design and announce to the world that I've garbage-picked a Hewlett
Packard DraftMaster I (7595A).
It was easy to get home because it was only two streets over, and the
wheels roll nicely.
It went downhill really well, so I'm considering entering it in next
year's Soap Box Derby.
I'm also planning on building some shelves into it, to justify its space
requirements.
The machine DOES work. I plugged it into my Amiga, and managed to get
it to draw a bicycle from an old PD CAD package off a magazine disk. It
keeps chewing on the flimsy paper I've got, though.
It has an HPIB port on it, so I'll have to write a HPGL driver for my
PET one of these days. ;)
Anyone know how old this thing is?
Look at the serial number. Add 1960 to the first two digits and that will tell you what
year it was made. The second pair of digits will tell you the week that it was made.
HP's web site lists "DraftMaster" as
one of their trademarks, but I couldn't find much
else out about it.
I used to work as a CAD operator at one of the big engineering firms in
downtown Montreal, so this is a cool find.
Yes, they're NICE plotters. Unfortunately, everyone is throwing them out and
replacing them with ink jets. I rescued two of them but couldn't even give them
away.
Joe
8:37 p.m.
At 02:47 PM 8/31/99 -0700, Jim wrote:
On Tue, 31 Aug 1999, Joe wrote:
Now that is sad... I have a few plotters in my collection, including a
7586B unit with the roll feed option.
<lots of rememberances snipped>
I have a couple of HP 7550s. They're real work horses! I have one connected to my
PC via RS-232. Win 3.1 even has drivers for it. It's great fun to write letters in
different colors and then watch it "write" them all out in multiple colors! Of
course it only handles vectors so it's no good for printing pictures and the like. I
also have a bunch of old HP 7221s, 7225s, and 9772s including a couple of them with the
paper feed roll options to go with my old HP calculators. They're nice plottes but
they're all big and heavy. The ones with the roll paper feed are absolutely huge!
Joe
At 01:25 AM 8/31/99 -0500, Doug wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I thought I'd break in amongst all the big-brained stuff about part
>design and announce to the world that I've garbage-picked a Hewlett
>Packard DraftMaster I (7595A).
>
>It went downhill really well, so I'm considering entering it in next
>year's Soap Box Derby.
I hope you are kidding... B^}
<snippage...>
I used to
work as a CAD operator at one of the big engineering firms in
downtown Montreal, so this is a cool find.
Yes, they're NICE plotters. Unfortunately, everyone is throwing them out
and replacing them with ink jets. I rescued two of them but couldn't
even give them away.
1 Sep
1 Sep
5:12 a.m.
On 31-Aug-99, James Willing wrote:
On Tue, 31 Aug 1999, Joe wrote:
> At 01:25 AM 8/31/99 -0500, Doug wrote:
> >It went downhill really well, so I'm
considering entering it in next
> >year's Soap Box Derby.
I hope you are kidding... B^}
Of course. It would require modifications to add steering, and I want
to leave it in its original state. :)
I do want to build shelves into it, though. But I want to fit the
shelves over the beam that runs through the middle. I don't want to
puncture the metal.
-jim
--
Doug Spence Hrothgar's Cool Old Junk Page:
hrothgar(a)total.net http://www.total.net/~hrothgar/museum/
5:29 a.m.
On 31-Aug-99, Joe wrote:
At 01:25 AM 8/31/99 -0500, Doug wrote:
>Anyone know how old this thing is?
Look at the serial number. Add 1960 to the first two
digits and that
will tell you what year it was made. The second pair of digits will
tell you the week that it was made.
39th week of 1988. Thanks! :)
Yes, they're NICE plotters. Unfortunately,
everyone is throwing them
out and replacing them with ink jets. I rescued two of them but
couldn't even give them away.
It's a shame.
I've been so out of touch with what's going on with drafting that I
thought these things would still be in use. I went to the big office
supply warehouse and they didn't have any kind of large paper. They
told me to try arts supply shops. :)
When I was working using AutoCAD in 1990, I was in a big room with lots
of people doing drafting by hand. I suppose that job is obsolete now?
I actually transferred some old drawings from paper into the computer
while I was there, and a girl I knew did that as a full-time job.
I didn't have direct access to the plotters back then. I shoved my
disks into a little cubbyhole and when I'd come back a few hours later
some drawings had miraculously appeared! :) I was able to peek through
the cubbyholes, though, and the plotters that they used looked to be big
flat tables over which the pens would move in both axes.
I have used smaller plotters, which work only on 8.5x11" sheets. Dopey
little toys compared to this. :) But I really wish I had picked up some
of those Commodore plotters (VIC 1520?) when I had a chance. There were
some of those at the Salvation Army store and I was too busy picking up
other things at the time. One of my many computer collecting regrets.
They probably ended up in the garbage. :'(
Joe
--
Doug Spence Hrothgar's Cool Old Junk Page:
hrothgar(a)total.net http://www.total.net/~hrothgar/museum/
9029
days inactive
9030
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