Typewriter plotters

I fell into a rabbit hole once: there used to be quite an art scene doing plotter art. So called "generative art" (way before anything AI/vLLM related) often used plotters to draw.

See https://img.inconvergent.net/plot/ which is endlessly fascinating.

This is blowing my mind. It's like reading about when airships were considered the future of air travel.

I had a Tandy TRS‑80 CGP‑115 as a kid. First thing I plotted was essentially porn. The "pens" were like an inch long and did last very long.

When I was a kiddo our local grocery store had a pen plotter that made personalized greeting cards in the arctic entryway (next to the gumball and sticky-hand machines), it was the highlight of my year when I would get to go customize a card for a family member and then watch it print. This must've been circa 1997 or 1998.

On reading the title my brain went straight to a flat bed plotter with an added golf ball head, and that seems silly, but is it any sillier than rendering all the characters with a pen?

These obviously failed in the market because they weren't using the features that people love: drm pens, and subscription paper :D