Parallel port --> GPIB (HP 7440A)

[Ronald]

Hi,

In my barn I found an old HP 7440A penplotter with an GPIB interface.
Unfortunately there's not such a port on my windows based PC. Is there any
possibility that I can "talk" with this pen plotter using my parallel or
serial port?

I'd like to use this penplotter as some kind of PCB drilling-device

Kind regards,

Ron@ld

[AaronK]

Hi Ronald,
Cool Application! To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to connect a GPIB port to a serial or parallel port. If you had an NI GPIB card and you knew their protocol you could probably do this. Otherwise it could be very difficult.

Best Regards,
Aaron K.
Application Engineer
National Instruments

[Collin M]

You could buy the NI GPIB-232CT-A, which allows you to control any GPIB instrument from a computer with a serial port.

http://sine.ni.com/apps/we/nioc.vp?cid=1261〈=US

Collin