Roland plotter on 10.5?

[colinet]

I've just dug a Roland A3 DXY-1300 plotter out of the loft. Anyone know if I can get ANY software to run it on Leopard? Also I'm going to need some adapter to plug it in to the Mac. I've got a Dual G5 and a Quad MacPro both running 10.5. If I can get it going I'd like to play around with a laser to make a cutter.

 

[senster2001]

Use 'pstoedit'

I've just dug a Roland A3 DXY-1300 plotter out of the loft. Anyone know if I can get ANY software to run it on Leopard? Also I'm going to need some adapter to plug it in to the Mac. I've got a Dual G5 and a Quad MacPro both running 10.5. If I can get it going I'd like to play around with a laser to make a cutter.

You can use pstoedit to translate PostScript and PDF files to HP-GL, which I believe the Roland DXY-1300 supports. Pstoedit can be installed from either Fink or MacPorts .

So, anything you want to print, you can save as a PDF from the print dialog, and then convert to HP-GL using pstoedit:

pstoedit -f plot-hpgl [I]input[/I].pdf [I]output[/I].hpgl

You then need to send this HP-GL file to the plotter. There are ample USB-to-serial and USB-to-parallel converters available (just do a Google search), so you should be able to use one of those.

It should even be possible to set up a printer filter to do this automatically, so you could use the plotter as pretty much any other printer, but I don't have a recipe handy for that at the moment.

Best wishes,

// Christian Brunschen

 

[colinet]

Thanks, but I've come to the conclusion that life is too short to spend all the time and fiddling about - especially when I have an inkjet printer that prints larger than the Roland. I remember when I first got it, being amazed by the technology, but I think now it sadly belongs in the Betmax and HD DVD cupboard. And you can get them on eBay now for less than $10.

So I did the only sensible thing to do and took it to bits. Threw way the big flat bits and kept all the interesting bits to use for goodness knows what . . .

 

[stackoverflow12]

Hi

Do you still have the manual for this plotter? I would make it worth you while to scan me a copy.

 

[colinet]

I probably threw it away, but I'll have a look in my office. If you don't hear from me again, it means I haven't got it.