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Since windows XP Microsoft was not delivering drivers for pen plotters (f.e. HP 7475a). unfortunately also HP stopped to carry about old hardware.

Is there any way to use a Rpi as printer server for this old hardware? The way that I imagine it would be to point raspberry as a -- let say -- network PS-printer and let it drive the plotter via GPIOs.

Some more details: plotter uses parallel printer port.

Kris_R
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You need to verify what interface the plotter uses. Some older HP plotters used RS-232, or a proprietary connection. Your first challenge will be getting the RPi physically able to communicate over this interface. A USB-Serial adapter might be all you need. Once that's working, I believe you can just send postscript files to the printer. I've not done this myself, so you might want to check out some of the other howto guides for getting this plotter working under linux. Once you get the RPi working with it, you should be able to share the plotter over your network using CUPS+Samba.

bobstro
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Many years ago I wrote software (on CP/M) for HP Plotters, which have a simple command structure. This is ASCII over RS232.

You should be able to dig up documentation on HP-GL (Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language).

Milliways
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