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Old Pen Plotters and Windows

I just upgraded to Windows from DOS (and Yes I know I am playing catch-up) and now my old pen plotter does not work properly in MSCAD. What should I do? MSCAD and Express use the Windows plotter/printer drivers directly (we do not supply any ourselves). Depending upon how old your pen plotter is, Windows may not ship with a driver that is made for your plotter. The old Windows 3.1 driver that you probably got with your plotter back in 1990 will not help. What you need to do is one of two things, either contact the manufacturer of the plotter (assuming they are still in business) or take advantage of one of Man's greatest achievements - the Internet. Pretty much every make and brand of plotter has had a new Windows driver written for it and it is bound to be up on the Net. The only thing you need to do is find it. That in itself can be a chore and when you do find the driver it may cost you a few dollars to order it. Some of the best drivers were written by companies other than the plotter manufacturers. If you do not have an Internet account, you can normally go to your local computer guru and for a small charge he will seek out the information you need, but my suggestion would be to invest in your future and get an account on the Net.
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  1. Jason Poitras

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