Cutting plotter
A plotter that holds a knife instead of a pen and cuts vector shapes out of vinyl, paper or film.
The cutting plotter inherited the pen plotter's mechanism but swapped the pen for a small swivelling blade. Instead of drawing, it follows vector paths and cuts through the material — adhesive vinyl, transfer film, card — while grit rollers feed the media back and forth beneath the blade. You then "weed" away the waste and lift off the finished decal.
It became the standard tool of the sign and decal trade from the 1980s on, with Roland, Graphtec and Summa among the big names, and is typically driven with HP-GL or a related command language. The hobbyist Cricut and Silhouette machines are the same idea shrunk down.