VC-1520
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The Commodore VC-1520 is a roll or cylinder plotter that can be used to output line drawings and vector graphics . It was mainly in use in the 1980s .
The device processes 114 mm wide normal paper (96 mm printable) from the roll and draws with four short ballpoint pen refills of different colors, which can be stored in a revolver magazine and pressed onto the paper using an electromagnetic drive. So it can be called a ballpoint pen plotter.
Like most peripherals the Commodore - home computer series have also the VC-1520 with its own instruction set and can be controlled it. Commands for absolute and relative positioning, pen control and color selection are just as much a part of the scope as the option of having letters and numbers written by specifying the corresponding CBM-ASCII character. In the smallest font size, up to 80 characters per line can be written at an acceptable speed for the time, so that the plotter was also an inexpensive alternative to a printer, especially as the typeface was superior to a 9-pin matrix printer .
As usual with Commodore, it is connected to the serial IEC interface as device no. 6. There was only little support from user programs, but with Simons Basic and Plotter Basic programming languages with an extended instruction set for plotter output.
The DPG1302 mechanical system from Alps Electric was also used in the plotter for the Olivetti M10 portable computer and (in various widths) for several Sharp plotter models , e.g. B. CE-516P. This information can be very helpful when looking for new mines.
