What good is an HP plotter?

[rea5245]

Hi,

I just scored an HP 7475A cheap at a flea market. Is there any modern software that can make use of it?

It's missing its carousel and they don't seem to be available on eBay very often. I could try reverse-engineering it and 3d print a new carousel, but before I go to the effort I'd like to know what I can use this for.

Thanks,
Bob

[Maximilian Hohmann]

(05-06-2018 02:08 PM)rea5245 Wrote:  ...I'd like to know what I can use this for.

Nothing, I'm afraid. Since many decades I have an HP9872C A3 flatbed plotter. I can't remember when I last did anything with it apart to run the self test to see if it still works.

Any printer on the market (even the very cheapest), no matter what printing technology it is based on, will produce infinitely better results within seconds than a plotter which will take minutes or hours for the same job thereby emptying several expensive pens. Usable from every current software.

Some 2D CAD programs on the market (e.g. "CADintosh" on the Mac) can still create HPGL files for plotters. But I am not aware of any charting program (e.g. MS Excel) that can generate charts in HPGL.

Regards
Max

[Sylvain Cote]

If you search "(HPGL,plotter) printer driver" on Google, you may found a HPGL printer driver that will allow you to use any of your applications with your plotter.

[David Bengtson]

There are several people using pen plotters for generative art.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/plottertwitter?lang=en

has some links and video's on twitter.

Dave

[Dan Grelinger]

Yours is a different model, but for the true geek, there is nothing compared to watching an HP-41C produce a color plot on a 7470A Opt. 3 plotter. Using an HP-41C. there is no other way to get the output that an HP 7470A plotter can provide.

[Martin Hepperle]

(05-06-2018 02:08 PM)rea5245 Wrote:  Hi,

I just scored an HP 7475A cheap at a flea market. Is there any modern software that can make use of it?

It's missing its carousel and they don't seem to be available on eBay very often. I could try reverse-engineering it and 3d print a new carousel, but before I go to the effort I'd like to know what I can use this for.

Thanks,
Bob

These plotters appear quite often on the market for low prices. Rebuilding a carousel would be rather difficult as this is a precision part made of many small parts. If you limit yourself to a single pen, you could probably use it as is.
You probably need to trick it into believing that it has a carousel.

Some people have modified these plotters (collectors please turn away in disgust) into vinyl cutting plotters to make stickers. You can find info on the net.
Many graphics programs can still export in HPGL format (e.g. Corel Draw and others, many also on Linux). You can then write a small program (e.g. in Python or whatever you prefer) to send the HPGL to the plotter via a COM port or USB-COM cable.

Martin

[Dan Grelinger]

Could you please give full particulars what an HP-41C/CV/CX could do what an HP-71B (for example) can't?

Ciao.....Mike
[/quote]

I am not familiar with the HP-71B, so am unable to do a comparison.

It may be that my comment was misunderstood. If using an HP-41C, there are things that can be done with the 7470A that cannot be done in any other way (with an HP-41C, i.e. color plotting and printing). If using an HP-71B, I do not know what can be done.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

(05-07-2018 02:07 PM)Dan Grelinger Wrote:  If using an HP-71B, I do not know what can be done.

Everything :-) But you need an HP-IL to either RS232 or HPIB (depending on what your plotter needs, mine has HPIB) interface. Which will cost a multiple of what those plotters sell at flea markets for - if you can find one at all. With such an interface the HP-71B can send all HPGL commands to the plotter which the plotter is capable of understanding, just like you would send characters to a printer.

[Dave Frederickson]

(05-07-2018 03:15 AM)Dan Grelinger Wrote:  Using an HP-41C. there is no other way to get the output that an HP 7470A plotter can provide.

Sure there is. pyILPER offers 7470A emulation and works nicely with emu71 and emu41 as well as physical calculators with a PIL-Box.

https://github.com/bug400/pyilper#features

Dave

[TomC]

If it is rs232, an HP48 can control it. I may have an extra carousel.

TomC

[Dan Grelinger]

(05-07-2018 03:26 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:  

(05-07-2018 03:15 AM)Dan Grelinger Wrote:  Using an HP-41C. there is no other way to get the output that an HP 7470A plotter can provide.

Sure there is. pyILPER offers 7470A emulation and works nicely with emu71 and emu41 as well as physical calculators with a PIL-Box.

https://github.com/bug400/pyilper#features

Dave

Do you have a video of the pyILPER 7470A emulator drawing a multiple color plot with pens? I'd like to see that. If it can't do that, I'll stand by my statement that there is no other way to get that kind of output.

[Dave Frederickson]

(05-08-2018 02:23 PM)Dan Grelinger Wrote:  Do you have a video of the pyILPER 7470A emulator drawing a multiple color plot with pens? I'd like to see that. If it can't do that, I'll stand by my statement that there is no other way to get that kind of output.

It's just a software emulator. No real pens.

[Hans Brueggemann]

fwiw,
i use my 7475A occasionally to draw data from some multimeters, which requires the instruments to run on a 24/7 basis for a week or so. being a bit picky on energy cost, my controller of choice is an HP-71B (instead of PC or laptop) in conjunction with a 82169A to talk to the instruments, and a 82164A to talk to the plotter. of course, normal pens would wreak havoc on the paper because of all the "pecking", so i opted for a quick hack to modify a plotter pen into a plotter pencil. see pictures. the automatic pencil i used for the mod is a ROTRING TIKKY 0.5 mm, using B type mines (2B or 6 B should actually work much better, but i didn't test them yet). i pretty much prefer the easiness of programming just a couple of lines of BASIC codes vs. the excel VBA, python, or (name your favourite language here) coding.
       

[Zaphod]

I seem to remember a HP plotter being used in conjunction with a HP97 when I was at Uni in 1980ish.....

.... to play Moonlander out of its owners manual

I did try it a couple of times ... purely for reference purposes of course.

Maybe it was the same HP plotter , I seem to remember pens

[Dave Frederickson]

(05-08-2018 08:28 PM)Zaphod Wrote:  I seem to remember a HP plotter being used in conjunction with a HP97 when I was at Uni in 1980ish.....

Probably not as the 97 has no external I/O.

[Zaphod]

(05-08-2018 08:53 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:  Probably not as the 97 has no external I/O.

oh?....., it was a similar large sloped keyboard , so maybe someone remembers what it could have been. it was def HP as I was a fan and owner already by then.

[Dieter]

(05-08-2018 09:15 PM)Zaphod Wrote:  

(05-08-2018 08:53 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:  Probably not as the 97 has no external I/O.

oh?....., it was a similar large sloped keyboard , so maybe someone remembers what it could have been. it was def HP as I was a fan and owner already by then.

If it looked like an HP97 and it controlled an external device it may have been an HP97s.

Dieter

[Dave Frederickson]

(05-08-2018 09:29 PM)Dieter Wrote:  If it looked like an HP97 and it controlled an external device if may have been an HP97s.

The 97S has a BCD interface. Not practical for interfacing to a plotter.

[rprosperi]

Could be one of the 98xx machines. Though they're all much larger a '97, some of them have the sloping front design with LED displays.

[Robert VM]

I find it most rewarding to connect a plotter to a calculator (hp48). Not too difficult to write a calc program for plotting functions after finding out a few facts about the plotter (ticks/mm, coordinate origin...) (hpmuseum.net for manual)

Inkscape (on linux) can output HPGL.

Plotter rehab story:
https://softsolder.com/2015/04/20/hp-747...ilitation/

Robert