you clicked the button out, put paper on the flatbed, then clicked the button in and a static charge sucked the paper down and held it in place.

Interestingly, this technology is not lost, and it is in a current vinyl cutter/plotter, the Silhouette Curio 2:

https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/curio-2

But this is quite a new model and I don't remember seeing this technology anywhere else for a long while, so perhaps they had to wait for some patent to expire?

These machines also have swappable tools (effectively a two tool changer).

I think ultimately the plotter largely became the vinyl cutter.