How to refurbish plotter pens?

[Philipp Hachtmann]

Hi,

I read that discussion.

 > Jon you were very very lucky to get that wooden box and its contents
 > !, There were basic kits and I don't know the original word, but
 > 'super kits'. A super kit sold on eBay not too long ago. I have 90% of
 > the basic kit. BTW my 565 is also IBM branded. It came off a IBM 1130.
 >
 > I've never tried using the Fisher pens, but they do show up from time
 > to time on the usual auction sites. And if someone does discover they
 > are the same or can be easily adapted you can sometimes find them in
 > independent owned stationary stores, the type of Ma+Pop store where
 > nothing gets thrown out, just moved to the basement.
 >

I don't know tooo much about the different kits. I have a "small" kit 
containing colored Fisher pressurized cartridges (labelled CalComp) 
which seem to work forever.

In your picture you have a normal ballpen. I tried to emulate that by 
cutting down one. It's a mess and not very funny.

I know the following configs:

Outer shell (always same), narrow inlay, narrow top cap --> for the pen 
you pictured,

Outer shell, wide inlay, wide top cap --> For the Fisher pen

Outer shell, some other inlay, ink top cap, some plastic ink pen stuff 
--> The ink pen config

I should have all those. Don't know if more existed.
Not yet tried the ink variant.

I usually use the Fisher things with my 565/563 plotters (both plural).

> I have the 565 on the list of things to build a more modern interface
> for. And a good example is a Onion.io Omega2+, there should be more
> then enough room to have a simple HPGL emulator.

I did it already (more or less):

1. Made an interface for my Honeywell H316 using WireWrap and forgetting 
about the circuit (no schematics). I wrote a FORTRAN IV linkable library 
that can even draw Hershey fonts on the H316.

2. Used pdp8 Omnibus original interface and wrote a stripped HPGL 
interpreter. Now the pdp8 can "play" PC prepared HPGL files to the 
CalComp plotter


Main problem around CalComp plotters is the paper. It's rare as hell. 
Anything else can be found easier. The plotters are not considered 
valuable (yet?).

For the 565, you can simply cut sheets and wrap them around the drum. My 
kit also contains some scotch tape for that (original and mentioned as a 
use case for the plotter in the manual).
For the 563, the form factor of the drum is not ideal - if you want to 
use the whole drum.

Kind regards

Philipp