Plotters

Overview

Pen plotters have been around since the early 1950's. The were frequently used to print CAD drawings or any other line or vector drawings. According to Joel Orr's World of Technology, Electronic Associates Inc produced an analog flatbed plotter in 1951. [Orr]

[BRL] Electronics Associates, Inc, Dataplotter 3110

The idea of a pen plotter is that lines are drawn onto the paper using an X-Y coordinate system. Flatbed models use a pen that can move in two dimensions across the page to make the drawing. This limits the maximum size of the paper to the size of the bed, but they can plot on inflexible materials.

Other plotters have a head that only moves in one dimension and the paper is fed back and forth to allow drawing in two dimensions. This allows for paper of any length to be used, and only the width is limited by the size of the plotter. [Wikipedia]

[IBM1627] IBM 1627 Plotter (top), Plotter Paper and Pen Movement (bottom)

[Calcomp 563] Calcomp 563 plotter used with a DEC PDP-8. Made in 1973

In the 1960's, Gerber Scientific also started producing plotters. Specifically, theirs were computer-controlled photoplotting systems for printed circuit boards. [Gerber] Below you can see a modern Gerber pen plotter.

[Gerber2] Gerber Technology AP-100 plotter

HP has also made a variety of "recorders" and plotters including the 9862A plotter in 1973, shown below, which connected to the 9800 series programmable desktop calculator. "The 9862A x-y plotter could draw and write histograms, pie-charts and circuit diagrams" [HP]

[HP] 9862A Plotter, 1973

As an alternative to plotting, people have tried replacing the head of an electronic typewriter style printer with lines of varying slopes instead of letters and characters to plot lines. [DiMeo]

[DiMeo]

Currently, plotters have other devices instead of pens, such as cutters or high pressure water jets for manufacturing.

[Gerber2]

For printing on large media, pen plotters have mostly been replaced by inkjet plotters which simply have a large paper feeder like a plotter with an inkjet head instead of pens. These are common in copy stores and can be used for signs and posters in addition to vector drawings that pen plotters can draw.

[Cadalyst] HP Designjet 1000 Series