What good is an HP plotter?

[Maximilian Hohmann]

(06-05-2018 06:09 PM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  I do not remember them having any trouble though with the colored felt-tip pens used for doing charts and other things.

The trouble with these was that eventually - rather earlier than later - they ran out of ink. So your plotter spent the best part of an hour painting a beautiful chart and two minutes before finishing it, the blue pen runs dry. You throw the chart away, replace the blue pen and start over. Only this time, it is the green pen which gives up after 10 minutes... And other than with modern ink-jet or laser printers, which know how much ink/toner they have left, a plotter has no idea how long it's pens are going to last.