Am 01.09.2011 um 00:54 schrieb Martin Peach:
Yes I started out with a knockoff Apple][ and later I found an Apple
printer with a serial (RS422) connection. After that I somehow
acquired a Samsung dot-matrix which had the serial port feature.
Then it was a question of finding the manuals where the graphics
protocol was described and ultimately I could use both as plotters.
I still have some of the printouts but the machines are all long gone.
I used Max on a old mac with serial ports to drive a imagewriter and a
NEC 24 pin printer. Though studying the manuals I never managed to
freely move the head around - it would only do something after
carriage return. I did intend to write characters, so maybe I didn't
discover graphics protocol. The NEC had a parallel port and worked
fine with a parallel to serial adapter I got cheap on ebay.
You might want to look for a pen plotter, too. HPGL is simple to do
and you can move around with great precision, control speed, and with
some you even have 2 axis. Plus "PD" is the pen down command ;) Common
models that don't crowd your space to much are HP 7574a and Roland dxy*
cheers, g.