Is a circa 1998 HP 1055CM four ink 36" plotter. My pride and joy. I've gone through a couple of thousand feet of paper through this unit. Great plotter.

It has a parallel printer port and a LANN network jack.

Right now, it is connected via a Belkin IEEE-1284 Controller, USB to Parallel cable.

I can add a printer using the Win7 wizard, my plotter is on the list, everything loads fine and the icon appears with the other printers.

I follow the instructions at the HP site, that has a patch. Files replaced.

Still nothing with a test print.

Running diagnostics on the USB-Parallel controller, it wants the drivers for the HP plotter. I go through the wizard, and when it comes time to show it where to find the driver, and there it is on the popdown list, it tells me that if I do this, my computer might melt into both slag and dross.

Should I try a different controller?

Or use the LANN and connect as a network printer?

OR is it a port issue, I wonder? The HP1055 icon info shows it is on parallel one? should that be through the usb parallel port?

Damn.