[NikkiA]

When I studied drafting at school (age 15) in the 80s, we took paper off a roll using a guillotine slicer and the thing that held the roll had markings for the right length for A0 and A1, so you'd just pull the end of the roll to the 'A1' mark, and slice the slider across, and you had a sheet of A1 in your hand.

Sadly, this meant that the paper would have natural curl to it, but it wasn't a big deal once you'd taped it to your drafting table with masking tape.