Which software for Summa D60 and Vista

[Headless Chicken]

A friend of mine has blown the dust off his Summa D60/U and asked me to get it working to his laptop. It has been hibernating for many, many, many years. The old tower that used to talk to it is long gone.

His laptop is running Vista, the laptop won't be used for anything else so upgrading laptop/windows (i.e cost) I'd like to avoid unless necessary.

Vista sees the D60 fine, he had the drivers CD, USB driver worked OK. He also has Win Cut 3.0 along with installation key. Win Cut will not install on Vista. I found a previous post on here where someone has had that same issue but there were no answers to make it work. I tried compatibility modes etc, no good.

I could install W2000 or XP in a VM and install Win Cut there, if I have to.. not sure which of those it needs but one of them should work.

My question is - do I go backwards with an older OS in a VM and use Win Cut, or is there an alternative that would be just as good, on Vista. The Win Cut CD also had Corel Draw on it, not sure of version, I didn't try to install as without Win Cut it didn't seem useful, that was the problem to solve first...

So.... forwards, or backwards? I'm not familiar with this business or it's software, but I'm happy to get it working for him if I have a direction!

Thanks.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

You might be able to cut directly out of Corel. I'm not used to Summa, only with Roland however. Now, that would mean that nesting, weeding box etc would have to be manually setup (if needed), but doable.

I do like my VMs, but Vista was a problematic OS (even though I actually liked it and do have a 32bit version that I use in a VM, but it was a RAM hog especially if using a 64 bit version), so running a VM within that from Vista, depending on the hardware of the laptop, it may not be the best thing. Can that laptop handle running, essentially, 2 computers at one time? If it can't, then I would try to find something that would use the OS that's on bare metal or flash it with a different OS (although more then likely wouldn't be Windows, so that may not be an option as well). Win 2000 had it's own issues, don't know how well it would handle being in a VM, about the only option that you would have now that would work in Vista and VM either Win 2000 or XP would be Virtual PC 2007(I think you can still download it from MSs website).

I would try to see about install DRAW and installing the drivers for the cutter and see if you can cut directly out of Corel. Might be a hail mary, but that would be my first try if Win Cut didn't want to install for you.

 

[jimdtg]

You can try with FlexiSIGN, it supports D60 for long time.

 

[Bly]

Upgrade to Win10 should only cost a couple of hundred bucks.
Then use Winplot which is free for Summa cutters.

 

[Headless Chicken]

Thanks all for replies.

I'm looking for cheapest option here just to get him (back) up and running, then he can decide if he wants to spend further. FlexiSign looks like a little expensive to try right off the bat, although yes I saw free trial so we could have a look. The D60 was bought new a long time ago so it's worth spending some to get it working...

I don't know enough about the interaction between this software, so I guess if it came with Corel Draw and Win Cut then Win Cut sounded kind of essential, but if you think Corel Draw might do something without it, I'll have a look.

WinPlot, I guess from looking at it, it's the Win Cut replacement, and I have seen versions that work with Vista too, so maybe Win 10 isn't even necessary, although the laptop will support that. I'll give it a try on Vista first.

Onwards!

Thanks all. Appreciated.

 

[FrankW]

You can download a current version of Winplot for free From the summa website. This software is for plotting, not for designing. If you wont pay money for a design software, you can use free Inkscape, exporting EPS and importing it to Winplot.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

A laptop still running Vista... that's something. Your friend might want to go to TigerDirect or somewhere similar and buy an inexpensive, up-to-date computer. It's bound to have more power, processing, and RAM, and not be terribly expensive. Plus, it would be up-to-date.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

A laptop still running Vista... that's something.

We still a laptop running Win 95 here. Not used for much though, but it still runs and runs pretty good. Pic taken today. Still handles the old games pretty good.

Built far better (like alot of things) back then.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

We still a laptop running Win 95 here. Not used for much though, but it still runs and runs pretty good. Pic taken today. Still handles the old games pretty good.

Built far better (like alot of things) back then.

Yeah, but Win 95 mostly worked. Vista was a pain in the ass from the launch.

 

[Bly]

Oh yeah we all miss the Win 95 Blue Screen Of Death.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Oh yeah we all miss the Win 95 Blue Screen Of Death.

Ironically, Win 95 and Win 98 were far more stable for me then Win 10 is for my dad (and they were actually far more powerful, not in terms of computing power, but in terms of what the user could do with them type of power). I actually never had a BSOD on any of the 9x line (but I only had 95 and 98 (not SE, original 98). Now Vista, due to it's resource hog propensity, it BSOD all the time. Although, ironically, I prefer Vista over XP (go figure). Truth be told, Vista is actually one of my top 3 of Win versions (and I do still run those 3 in a VM for nostalgia purposes).

 

[Headless Chicken]

Thanks all for replies.

I had a look at WinPlot, 11.3 installed on Vista OK (11.5, 11.8 did not want to know). I will have a look at Inkscape, see if that works on Vista. I was wrong when I thought he had Corel Draw, could have sworn I saw it, but he only has the plugins on the WInCut CD...

Regarding replacing the Vista laptop... the laptop won't be doing anything other than controlling this plotter, no other software, no plans to even put it on a network I think although I have service pack'ed it as far as it will. So as long as any compatibility problems can be overcome... should be OK.

That's a nice looking old Win 95 laptop, looks in good nick too. I love stuff like that. I have piles of old stuff here, WFWG 3.11 install floppies, NT Server unopened, Original Symantec Procomm install kit (worlds best terminal program). Probably never use it again but I'm keeping it!