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It's all advertising lingo. I have certainly seen machines that claim to be 'large format' when the largest they support is 11x17 (or A3). But others that suppo

It's all advertising lingo. I have certainly seen machines that claim to be 'large format' when the largest they support is 11x17 (or A3). But others that support roll paper with widths > 24". HP sells a number of these under the designjet brand and calls them plotters. While traditional plotters used pens (aka pen plotters), I think a more accurate definition might be something that uses a set of motors to move a printing toolhead (be it pen, ink jet, knife, laser, router or whatever) along a medium (paper, vinyl, wood, etc) in a continuous line in the x and/or y direction. Where a traditional printer only moves the paper through in one direction and realizes the image 'line by line' across the perpendicular dimension. Owning several vintage plotters (mostly pen) and a couple of modern pen plotters (axidraw, custom built). I have no problem imagining the same general mechanism driving any toolhead. The HP7580, HP7475a, AxiDraw, every laser cutter i've seen, shopbots, modern hp designjets, etc .. All plotters.

jeffbee 4y ago
Those definitions seem normal and right to me. I would say that the early plotters I used in the 80s had the pen on one axis and the paper moving on the other axis in both directions (HP 7470, for example).
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  There are other plotters around that time, roland's for instance, that used a more obvious cartesian model. IE a 'print head' sliding on an x-axis rail, that slides on an y-axis rail. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uECs0F8Txj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uECs0F8Txj0, the roland dxy-1200) Obviously if you use a roll of paper you need to run the paper itself back and forth unless you want to build something as big as a shopbot style table. I think the design for the 'roll-paper' plotters drove the design of much smaller plotters like the 7475a (which also moves the paper on one axis). Perhaps HP had a patent on that 'paper moves on one axis, pen moves on another? Regardless, both designs were present in the 80s.

jeffbee 4y ago

Those definitions seem normal and right to me. I would say that the early plotters I used in the 80s had the pen on one axis and the paper moving on the other axis in both directions (HP 7470, for example).

sleepybrett 4y ago
There are other plotters around that time, roland's for instance, that used a more obvious cartesian model. IE a 'print head' sliding on an x-axis rail, that slides on an y-axis rail. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uECs0F8Txj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uECs0F8Txj0, the roland dxy-1200) Obviously if you use a roll of paper you need to run the paper itself back and forth unless you want to build something as big as a shopbot style table. I think the design for the 'roll-paper' plotters drove the design of much smaller plotters like the 7475a (which also moves the paper on one axis). Perhaps HP had a patent on that 'paper moves on one axis, pen moves on another? Regardless, both designs were present in the 80s.