How to create .dot files for a World Laser

[James W Harvey]

I need some help with creating files for a customers World Laser.

I was told that World Laser provides software with a dongle for creating artwork to be lased. My customer broke his dongle. World laser claims that the old software is no longer supported and that a replacement dongle is not available. They claim that he would need to buy the new software package for $3000.00.

The old software created files with the extension *.dot, is there any other software that will work with this World Laser?

Thanks for the help.
James

[Martin Boekers]

Usually it's not just the file name, If it needs a dongle, chances are good it has to be there and read it for it too work.

[Joe Pelonio]

This is one way hardware and software companies from customers with old equipment. I ran into this with a dongle required to run $10,000 software, though in this case, the replacement was only $6,000. Dongles are usually not software but rather a security device, mine used the parallel port and without it no data could go to the plotter. Those .dot files were not used much and were mostly for graphs, but also used (in a different format) in earlier versions of MS Word for placement of logo on letterhead. I doubt that you can still find software that produces it.

Most of them are coded to your software license so that even if you can find a used one it won't work. He may have to weigh the cost of the $3,000 software with that of a new laser that uses more readily available software.