[time-nuts] OT: Need HP 7475A Drivers for XP or Linux

Eric Fort eric.fort at gmail.com
Sun Oct 21 09:41:30 UTC 2007


I really appreciate the Detailed reply, Thanks.  Your web page has an error
though that prevents downloading the roland drivers.  the link to them is
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/neonjohn/My%20Documents/My%20Webs/Neon_John/Neon/Misc/Roland_RWD-
028.zip

since I'm not on your local machine I have no access to files on your C:
drive, atleast referenced this way.  Could the link be updated or could you
just email the drivers.

Thanks,

I'll let you know how it goes.

Eric

On 10/20/07, Neon John <jgd at johngsbbq.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 18:57:27 -0700, "Eric Fort" <eric.fort at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >There seems to be a wealth of knowlege here about keeping older HP
> hardware
> >running.  Would anyone in this group have experience using a 7475A
> plotter
> >under XP or Linux to plot test data or drawings.  I'd like to get mine
> >running again.
>
> No problem.  I use an E-size HP engineering plotter to make neon patterns
> and to plot
> schematics.  I have it working quite well under XP.
>
> These old plotters are HPGL or HPGL-1 - same thing.  They are NOT
> compatible with
> HPGL-2.  An additional complication that arises with some software
> packages is that
> there are two common implementations of HPGL.  The HP standard one has the
> origin at
> the corner of the paper and all movement instructions are positive
> intergers.  The
> other one has the origin in the center of the page and movement
> instructions involve
> positive and negative intergers.  They are not compatible.  If you get a
> plot but
> it's only about a quarter of the drawing then the driver is outputting a
> center-zero
> file to a corner-zero plotter.
>
> Microsoft dropped HPGL support, what little there was, from XP.  No
> problem.  Sign
> vinyl cutters almost all use HPGL and are still in
> production.  Unfortunately many
> use center-page-origin HPGL.  Fortunately Roland does not.  Therefore
> Roland drivers
> will work with HP plotters.
>
> Unfortunately, Roland apparently has taken down their windows plotter
> drivers.
> Fortunately I haven't :-)  You can get the drivers from my site here:
>
> http://www.neon-john.com/Neon/Misc/misc_home.htm
>
> Bottom of the page.  ( a google click or two would be appreciated :-)
> You'll have to
> experiment a bit to find out which Roland plotter most closely
> approximates your
> plotter.
>
> This is a universal solution that will let just about any program send
> vector images
> to the plotter via windows printing.  Just for kicks sometime, print a
> text file from
> WordPad and watch what happens.  The plotter carefully draws each and
> every letter.
>
> If, for some reason, this doesn't work, there is another method that I use
> with
> CorelDraw and any other package that can export the drawing in HPGL
> format.
>
> Simply choose "export", select "HPGL" and select a place to store the
> file.  Then use
> Hyperterm or any other terminal package capable of sending out an ASCII
> file and copy
> the HPGL file to the COM port that the plotter is connected to.  This will
> be generic
> HPGL and won't have any plotter setup info in it.  OTOH, usually none is
> needed.
>
> My HP plotter and/or Hyperterm (can't remember which is the culprit) does
> NOT use
> Xon/Xoff handshaking.  Therefore hardware handshaking MUST be enabled and
> wired in
> the interface.  Additionally, several pins must be jumpered together to
> make things
> work.  When you get that far, drop me a note and I'll go dig out my
> adapter and give
> you the wiring.  This handshaking requirement applies to the XP drivers
> too.
>
> A few notes about using a pen plotter with Windows and Corel in
> particular.  Set ALL
> lines to "hairline".  Use the ^A key to "select all" and then set the line
> width to
> "hairline".  The reason is that Corel and/or the driver is so dumb that
> instead of
> making a wide line by making several long strokes with the pen offset a
> little each
> time, it scribbles it in like a first grader coloring.  That is, if the
> line is to be
> 24 points wide, the pin is driven to scribble back and forth on 24 point
> strokes.  It
> draws effectively about an inch a minute like that, if it doesn't wear a
> hole in the
> paper.
>
> Set your actual line widths by using various width pens.  Set, say, a 4
> point wide
> line to pen 1, an 8 point line to pen 2, etc.
>
> Also, convert all the colors to black.  For some reason the translation
> from color to
> pen number doesn't work too well.  If you need the output to be in color
> then move
> each color in the drawing to a different layer and then assign the
> appropriate pen to
> each layer.
>
> Sometimes text comes out looking better if you "convert to curves" before
> plotting.
>
> Rots o Ruck finding pens.  They're available but hard to find and very
> expensive. I'm
> fortunate to have acquired several Rapidograph drafting pen to HP pen
> adapters so
> that I can use india ink to draw with.  India ink on mylar is still THE
> kick-ass way
> to make PCB masks if you don't have a photo-plotter handy.  I bought out
> the entire
> remaining stock so there are no more anywhere in the country according to
> the
> factory.
>
> When I don't feel like messing with liquid ink, I use felt tip pens.  I've
> hacked up
> an HP pen to accept a shortened ordinary writing felt tip.  I've also
> tried roller
> ball and gel pens.  Both work but the plotting speed has to be kept down
> to 1" per
> second.
>
> BTW, I found this painful-to-retrieve programming manual for your plotter
> while
> googling around.
>
>
> http://www.luberth.com/help/HP_7475_Graphics_Plotter_interfacing_and_programming_manual/
>
> BTW2, Several years ago I experimented with photo-plotting by making up a
> pen adapter
> that held an optical fiber instead of a pen.  I tapped the pen up/down
> solenoid to
> turn the light source on and off.  Plotting in a dark room directly to
> film worked
> fairly well.  Now that green laser modules are available so cheaply, I'm
> going to
> revisit the concept, only this time with the module mounted directly in a
> pen body.
>
> So as not to waste so much film on my fixed-width plotter, I'd set up an
> E-size page
> in Corel.  I draw a box in the center of the page the size of the film. to
> be used. I
> plot this to a carrier sheet of mylar in the plotter using a pencil
> mounted in a pen
> body.  This lets me erase the lines later and reuse the mylar.
>
> In Corel, I then turn on the layer with the PCB artwork, tape the film to
> the square
> on the paper and plot only the artwork layer.  Works great.  I use this
> same
> technique when plotting to mylar so as not to waste a large sheet on small
> artwork.
> Adhering the film to the mylar with 3M spray adhesive greatly improves the
> dimensional accuracy.
> John
> --
> John De Armond
> See my website for my current email address
> http://www.neon-john.com
> http://www.johndearmond.com <-- best little blog on the net!
> Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
> Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms should be a convenience store, not a
> government agency.
>
>
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