The plotter needs only 6 pins (gnd, pen, axe, direction, step, ready) so it can be controlled directly via LPT. I firstly successfully tried a windows machine with a parallel port.
For USB connection I used Arduino with serial communication where Arduino accepts simple basic commands and when it's done it sends a message to get the next ones. It's on Linux with latest CogVM but I had to create symlink from /dev/ttyUSB0 to /dev/ttySx and open the port by number (x), not by the name. See http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg60816.html -- Pavel On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:56 PM, Schwab,Wilhelm K <[email protected]> wrote: > Nice! What is the physical/electrical connection? Serial, parallel, etc.? > If serial, did you have any problems with opening ports? On which VM? > > Bill > > > ________________________________________ > From: [email protected] > [[email protected]] on behalf of Pavel Krivanek > [[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 9:47 AM > To: Pharo Development > Subject: [Pharo-project] Pharo and an old plotter > > Hi, > > I would like to mention one funny usage of Pharo. I have got an old > simple czech plotter from 1989 named XY4150. It is no secret that the > interactive environment of Smalltalk is ideal for controlling such > machines because it is very easy to send commands to it and experiment > with drawing capabilities. > > Even today such old hardware can find a real-life production > deployment. I currently use it to write owner names to plastic cards > with pre-printed bar codes by a special pen destined to sign credit > cards :-) > > It is controlled by Arduino however LPT can be used too. > > Btw. there was several interesting czech plotters. The most > interesting one was named Merkur Alfi. It was a construction set for > children with two stepper motors and one relay. > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUmFYzyL9eo > > And they started to sell it recently again so if you are looking for > some cool hardware for your children, you can look here: > http://www.merkurtoys.cz/vyrobky/plotrovy-zapisovac-alfi-z-merkuru[1] > But it's about 139€ so it's quite expensive... > > Cheers, > -- Pavel >
