Watanabe Plotter (MP-1000?) control with LabView

[RidderM]

Dear all,

I'm looking for a driver or vi to control a Watanabe (now Graphtec) Plotter with LabView. The plotter has a somehow parallel interface, even if the connector is not the common one. An adapter is available. Other forums state that the Watanabe is HPGL able. Alternatively, I own a Picom Plotter, which seems to be quite older.

Both plotters will be used for an XY-table application, so no "real" printing is necessary.

Does anyone have an idea here?

Thanks in advance for any clue.

Regards,

Markus

[MoviJOHN]

Most likely the "parallel" interface is actually HPGL.  It may also have a serial port. You will need an HPGL adapter, either PCI or PCMCIA.

It would probably be most helpful if you can get your hands on a user manual.

[RidderM]

Dear MOVIJohn,

I made some progess yesterday. The interface is a reduced parallel port. Some signals (like LF and paper feed and others) are missing. All essential signals like ACK, ERROR and others are present.

Nevertheless, the plotter does not come to life, being sent data (like testpage) or others. I found some raw commands (DOS-Based) on http://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/160508.

I will try this next. If anyone has an additional idea, I would be pleased being part of the thought.

Thankx!