Selling Calcomp 565 plotter

[Patrick Finnegan]

On Sunday 07 February 2010, Philipp Hachtmann wrote:
> >   URRRRRRRRR!!!  Wantwantwant!  Being broke SUCKS!
> 
> the plotter is in poor condition:
> 1. The drum is damaged. You'll probably have to fix that before it
>  will be able to plot properly. 

There's a small dent, less than 1mm deep.  The shadows in the photo make 
it look bigger than it actually is.  Some Bondo car-body filler would 
probably take care of that in short order.

> 2. It is dirty.

Oh noes!  It's old, what do you expect?  I've found that spending time 
on cleaning things I put on ebay (beyond wipe the dust off with a rag) 
rarely helps the sale price.

> 3. There are no cables. Cables are harder to find than the plotter
>  itself. 

If you don't have the cables, just replace the connector with something 
else.  If you don't want to do that, then just appreciate the fact that 
you have a computer artifact from over 30 years ago.

I find it amusing when people on here say "oh, that's not rare, it so 
trivial to find them."  In 99% of cases, it's not.  Just because you 
might have a stash of something doesn't mean that there's any more 
available from anywhere else.  It takes real work, luck, and/or a lot of 
cash to find a lot of computer stuff that's more than 20 years old.

> 4. No pen. It will be challinging to get a pen holder for
>  the plotter. 

Shrug.  I can't help there.  I got the plotter in mostly the same 
condition as what I'm selling it in (they're cleaner now than before).  
You can blame probably 30 years of being stored on missing parts and 
dirt.

> 5. No trace of paper. Getting paper for this kind of
>  plotter seems to be difficult to impossible (correct me if I'm
>  wrong, still hoping..!!!).

There's a few feet of paper on it still, but it's not much.  I'm sure 
that if you were sufficiently motivated, you could punch holes into some 
roll of paper that's commonly available, if you can't still buy the same 
paper that this uses.

Pat
-- 
Purdue University Research Computing ---  http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
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