HPGL drivers for plotters

[Ton_Aarts]

Are there any HP-GL drivers to be used for controlling a real HP plotter (HP 7580B) from application software like CAD-systems e.g. AutoCad or Solid Edge or others (based upon Vector-graphics instead of raster-graphics) e.g. Eplan or MS-Visio or CorelDraw?

If not, is it possible to write a driver myself with programming language C or similar and how-to do that ?

HP-GL are ASCii-based commands (max 77 commands for HP 7580B) so it seems not that hard to do I assume ? 

Thanks in advance.

[Repairatrooper · Accepted solution]

For a product this old you may have to find resources in the DIY community.  While there are probably a limited number of these units still being used you may find someone who has already done the job of tracking down resources. In my experience on this support forum, those types of legacy resources are either limited or non-existent.

[Ton_Aarts]

Dear Repairatrooper,

I was already desperately looking forward to find someone who has already done the job of tracking down resources.

So,  I  completely agree with your advise and hopefully someone did this previously for the HP7580B.

In the mean time I found the Microsoft procedure to do it (see Microsoft Plotter Driver - Windows drivers | Microsoft Learn )

but it looks very complicated (1711 pages of pdf) to me.

Rgds, Ton_Aarts