The Role of Output Devices in the Higher Education Courses of Cartography - Maps for the Future Children Education and Internet - page 38

Fig. 3.3 Twenty-four pin dot color matrix printed map
computers. CalComp's appearance coincided with the first wave of acceptance of
computers by such mainstream businesses as banks and insurance companies. In
1959 the company developed the world's first drum plotter, but few expected the
instrument to grow into CalComp's strongest product line (Fig. 3.4 ). The company
introduced a complete line of drum plotters in 1962. By 1968 between 80% and
90% of all plotters in existence were manufactured by CalComp (prices were
between $3,500 and $50,000).
The other important plotter producing company of the early years was Versatec.
They produced the first commercially successful electrostatic writing technique
plotter that produced information on paper directly from digital data sources in
1970.
Hewlett Packard and Tektronix produced small, desktop-sized flatbed plotters in
the late 1960s and 1970s. The pens were mounted on a traveling bar, whereby the
y-axis was represented by motion up and down the length of the bar and the x-axis
was represented by motion of the bar back and forth across the plotting table. Due
to the mass of the bar, these plotters operated relatively slowly. HP produced
only flatbed plotters before 1980, but the model 7580A (released in 1981) was
the world's first “grit wheel” pen plotter. This machine combined high speed and
high line quality in a small package at a price less than half that of comparable
products on the market at the time. Small grit-covered wheels move the paper along
the X-axis of the 7580A, thereby replacing the heavy, bulky components used in
other plotters with a low-mass, low-inertia drive mechanism.