Plotters and printing
I was remembering how printers were crucial in my career. I've worked in the building/construction industry for almost 30 years. (I still get goosebumps about how much time has passed.) In the 90's plotters were very important. These huge printers would output large format sheets of drawings. I never worked anywhere that had the blueprint machines like I used in school. We needed it because they were teaching us drafting both ways still, with a pencil and computer!
These plotters were mainly built by HP in the offices I worked at. The ink cartridges were expensive and we always needed to call the printer guy because these printers failed often or needed tuning. Eventually these large plotters would slowly die off when CAD software begun implementing PDF technology. As the industry started accepting PDF files, they would send these off to professional printers instead. Cost was less and no more maintenance headaches having a plotter in the office. Now today, most of the industry won't print and instead view the PDF on a tablet. The space used up by a plotter can now be another workstation for a future employee.
We needed to be patient with print jobs. Printing a full set could take hours depending what model of plotter you had. I tried to manage the printing process, giving myself time to complete a job but it rarely worked out. My other coworkers would work until the last minute and I would need to stay after hours to print the job. It was very annoying and disrespectful when this happened. Especially when a sheet had a printing error, or ink ran out or paper ran out. That was another thing, I had to stay on top of ordering large rolls of sheets and keep a good supply. Something younger drafters will never experience.
I'm happy that we don't need to deal with these large plotters any longer. PDF technology has saved so many trees and me from stressful days.