Problems plotting to 7470.exe ("missing comma")

[Joerg]

I think I'm on Joerg's pre-fab'd whitelist, so let's give this a try.

Besides Google, there are other Port 80 access points to Usenet
which allow posting:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....matic+NO+Morons+qq-qq+uu-uu+*-delete-*-*-*-OT

Thanks for all your help, guys. Abdul (the designer of the Prologix) had
the idea of turning on the pull-up resistors inside the uC and ...
bingo! Probably not much threshold margin but lo and behold the HPGL
file appears to be ok now ...

http://www.analogconsultants.com/ng/plot0001.plt

and the result looks clean ...

http://www.analogconsultants.com/ng/plot0001.png

So if anyone else has this issue look at the Prologix site or write for
a released code. Abdul is very responsive. I wish customer service was
like that at every business.

 

[Peter Baltus]

It's been a long time since I dealt with HPGL but the only problem ever
was a missing "pen down" command which had to be added by hand. What's
this missing comma business?

Hi, Joerg --

Sorry for the cryptic messages and poor error handling. The human-
factors team will be disciplined accordingly.

Usually the "missing comma, malformed data" message means that you
haven't set your instrument up for HPGL output at all; it is either
configured to talk to a non-HP plotter, or it's sending PCL or Epson
printer codes instead of HPGL. I looked at the .plt file in the
zipfile you linked to elsewhere, and that appears to be what's going
on.

I don't have a 3577A myself, but at some point, someone reported that
they were able to get it to work, and sent me a plot from theirs.
It's included in the c:\program files\ke5fx\gpib\sample hpgl files
subdirectory.

I'm always happy to take a look at problematic .plt files if you'll
email them to me via the link in the helpfile. They are usually easy
enough to diagnose... although that renderer is a major kludge, so
there isn't always a way to make plots from specific instruments look
good.

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

I don't have any other way to post to Usenet these days; if he doesn't
get this message, can someone please reply and quote the whole thing?

--- done ---

-- john, KE5FX

 

[JosephKK]

Firing up my trusty old HP3577 and acquiring some plots,
I notice that the third character in the plot files is a
^C (Between the initial LB command and the first semicolon).
The hp2xx program croaks on that, and likely so does 7470.exe.
It works fine when I remove the first four bytes: "LB^C;".

Cheers,
Jeroen Belleman

Unless my brain rot is worse than usual that is an address string to
set a printer / plotter at address 3 to listen.

 

[Joerg]

Hi, Joerg --

Sorry for the cryptic messages and poor error handling. The human-
factors team will be disciplined accordingly.

Usually the "missing comma, malformed data" message means that you
haven't set your instrument up for HPGL output at all; it is either
configured to talk to a non-HP plotter, or it's sending PCL or Epson
printer codes instead of HPGL. I looked at the .plt file in the
zipfile you linked to elsewhere, and that appears to be what's going
on.

I don't have a 3577A myself, but at some point, someone reported that
they were able to get it to work, and sent me a plot from theirs.
It's included in the c:\program files\ke5fx\gpib\sample hpgl files
subdirectory.

I'm always happy to take a look at problematic .plt files if you'll
email them to me via the link in the helpfile. They are usually easy
enough to diagnose... although that renderer is a major kludge, so
there isn't always a way to make plots from specific instruments look
good.


I don't have any other way to post to Usenet these days; if he doesn't
get this message, can someone please reply and quote the whole thing?

--- done ---

-- john, KE5FX

Thanks, John. And also thanks to Peter for making the post appear. As
mentioned in another post it works now. It was a pure electrical issue.
The Prologix device has too high a threshold voltage and when Abdul sent
me code to set the pull-up resistors inside the uC that pulled it over
the threshold and I got my first good plot.

John, you have created a nice program to pull data out of older
equipment. It's much better than trying to hold a digital camera steady.

 

[JosephKK]

Hi, Joerg --

Sorry for the cryptic messages and poor error handling. The human-
factors team will be disciplined accordingly.

Usually the "missing comma, malformed data" message means that you
haven't set your instrument up for HPGL output at all; it is either
configured to talk to a non-HP plotter, or it's sending PCL or Epson
printer codes instead of HPGL. I looked at the .plt file in the
zipfile you linked to elsewhere, and that appears to be what's going
on.

I don't have a 3577A myself, but at some point, someone reported that
they were able to get it to work, and sent me a plot from theirs.
It's included in the c:\program files\ke5fx\gpib\sample hpgl files
subdirectory.

I'm always happy to take a look at problematic .plt files if you'll
email them to me via the link in the helpfile. They are usually easy
enough to diagnose... although that renderer is a major kludge, so
there isn't always a way to make plots from specific instruments look
good.


I don't have any other way to post to Usenet these days; if he doesn't
get this message, can someone please reply and quote the whole thing?

--- done ---

-- john, KE5FX

Per your request.