| Author |
Message |
Casper H.S. Dik
Guest
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 Posted:
Thu May 19, 2005 4:35 pm Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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Stuart Biggar <sbiggar@email.arizona.edu> writes:
| Quote: | NI provides drivers for Windows and Linux and OS/X for free and
charges for Solaris (SPARC only) and a couple of other UNIX variants.
We use some of the NI GPIB-Ethernet devices in our optics lab.
Our software runs on SPARCs and hardware/software drivers have been
good under Solaris without the "fun" bluescreen crashes with Windows
(NT and later 2000) using the same software (Windows drivers from NI).
Later Windows drivers appear better (but not perfect). So maybe you
get what you pay for :-)
I would like to see Sun lobby NI for support of X86 Solaris for at
least their PCI-GPIB boards and the GPIB-Enet (Ethernet to GPIB)
boxes. I've made telephone and written requests without even an
answer ...
|
I don't even know what GPIB is :-) but perhaps this is screaming
for some generic "Windows driver wrapper" for Solaris/x86.
Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.
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Dragan Cvetkovic
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu May 19, 2005 4:35 pm Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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Casper H.S. Dik <Casper.Dik@Sun.COM> writes:
| Quote: |
I don't even know what GPIB is :-) but perhaps this is screaming
for some generic "Windows driver wrapper" for Solaris/x86.
|
GPIB is "general purpose interface bus" (check
e.g. http://www.microlink.co.uk/gpib.html), but it seems it failed to
propagate as it is not very well known today...
Dragan
--
Dragan Cvetkovic,
To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer
!!! Sender/From address is bogus. Use reply-to one !!! |
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Steven Hill
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu May 19, 2005 4:35 pm Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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| Quote: | I don't even know what GPIB is :-) but perhaps this is screaming
for some generic "Windows driver wrapper" for Solaris/x86.
GPIB is "general purpose interface bus" (check
e.g. http://www.microlink.co.uk/gpib.html), but it seems it failed to
propagate as it is not very well known today...
|
Formerly HPIB, which is *very* well known in lab equipemnt circles, or
anything decent and old with either a Hewlett-Packard of Agilent
Technologies badge on it.
I am surprised there isn't more Solaris support, but since my work makes
me poke HP-UX boxes, it tended to be HP-UX stuff that was shipped in your
rack of microwave gear or whatever...
--
Steven Hill
"Okay, so, what do you need? Besides a miracle?"
"Guns. Lots of guns."
- Tank and Neo, The Matrix
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mario
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu May 19, 2005 10:28 pm Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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"hubcap" <hubcap@clemson.edu> wrote in message
news:d6i6a1$kac$1@hubcap.clemson.edu...
| Quote: | Casper H.S. Dik <Casper.Dik@Sun.COM> writes:
I don't even know what GPIB is :-) but perhaps this is screaming
for some generic "Windows driver wrapper" for Solaris/x86.
There was a General Purpose Interface Bus adaptor on my 1982 GRiD
laptop. Right next to the connection for the paper-tape reader <g>...
-Mike
|
Funny as it may seem, even MY laptop has a paper-tape reader connector. It's
also known as.. RS232. Yep, good-old RS232 is what you connected your paper
punch and/or tape readers. |
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Richard B. Gilbert
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu May 19, 2005 11:06 pm Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
|
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Casper H.S. Dik wrote:
| Quote: | Stuart Biggar <sbiggar@email.arizona.edu> writes:
NI provides drivers for Windows and Linux and OS/X for free and
charges for Solaris (SPARC only) and a couple of other UNIX variants.
We use some of the NI GPIB-Ethernet devices in our optics lab.
Our software runs on SPARCs and hardware/software drivers have been
good under Solaris without the "fun" bluescreen crashes with Windows
(NT and later 2000) using the same software (Windows drivers from NI).
Later Windows drivers appear better (but not perfect). So maybe you
get what you pay for :-)
I would like to see Sun lobby NI for support of X86 Solaris for at
least their PCI-GPIB boards and the GPIB-Enet (Ethernet to GPIB)
boxes. I've made telephone and written requests without even an
answer ...
I don't even know what GPIB is :-) but perhaps this is screaming
for some generic "Windows driver wrapper" for Solaris/x86.
Casper
GPIB is General Purpose Instrument Bus or something like that; also |
known as HPIB and IEEE-something. It's used to interface suitably
equipped electronic instruments to a computer; e.g. hook up volt meters,
frequency counters, printers, oscilloscopes, etc, etc, and control them
or read them from your computer. It's been around for the last fifteen
years or so. |
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Rich Teer
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu May 19, 2005 11:57 pm Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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On Thu, 19 May 2005, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
| Quote: | or read them from your computer. It's been around for the last fifteen
years or so.
|
Longer than that! I remeber IEEE 488 ports being available for my
BBC Micro, from circa 1982. I think even then it was an established
standard.
--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member
President,
Rite Online Inc.
Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich |
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Theo v. Werkhoven
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri May 20, 2005 12:35 am Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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The carbonbased lifeform mario inspired sci.electronics.equipment with:
| Quote: |
"hubcap" <hubcap@clemson.edu> wrote in message
news:d6i6a1$kac$1@hubcap.clemson.edu...
Casper H.S. Dik <Casper.Dik@Sun.COM> writes:
I don't even know what GPIB is :-) but perhaps this is screaming
for some generic "Windows driver wrapper" for Solaris/x86.
There was a General Purpose Interface Bus adaptor on my 1982 GRiD
laptop. Right next to the connection for the paper-tape reader <g>...
-Mike
Funny as it may seem, even MY laptop has a paper-tape reader connector. It's
also known as.. RS232. Yep, good-old RS232 is what you connected your paper
punch and/or tape readers.
|
Current-loop most of the time (20mA).
Same as with the old teletype consoles and Telex machines.
Theo
--
theo at van-werkhoven.nl ICQ:277217131 SuSE Linux
linuxcounter.org: 99872 Jabber:muadib at jabber.xs4all.nl AMD XP2100+ 512MB
"ik _heb_ niets tegen Microsoft, ik heb iets tegen
de uitwassen *van* Microsoft" |
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Jorgen Moquist
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri May 20, 2005 12:35 am Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
|
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Stuart Biggar wrote:
| Quote: | Casper H.S. Dik wrote:
I would like to see Sun lobby NI for support of X86 Solaris for at
least their PCI-GPIB boards and the GPIB-Enet (Ethernet to GPIB)
boxes. I've made telephone and written requests without even an
answer ...
I don't even know what GPIB is :-) but perhaps this is screaming
for some generic "Windows driver wrapper" for Solaris/x86.
Casper
GPIB is IEEE-488. It is an 8-bit parallel bus with good handshaking
and reasonable performance (for the time). It is used in high-end
electronic test equipment and such. It allowed for multiple instruments
on a single, well shielded bus. Connectors stack for either star or
daisy chain type connections. HP (now Agilent) used it for any high end
instrument. We use it for connecting precision digital voltmeters
and sources in an optics lab. These instruments have ONLY a GPIB
interface. Some of the lower end HP (now Agilent) instruments have
serial and GPIB interfaces but the most accurate (quite expensive)
DVMs from Agilent have ONLY GPIB. I think the same is true of other
test and measurement equipment manufacturers.
As an aside, the Agilent web site had a doc stating that serial
should never be used for data collection on Windows as the Windows
serial driver was flawed for flow control. The doc (which was there
6 months ago) suggested using GPIB on Windows if reliable data transfer
was required.
In the old days, HP used GPIB for all sorts of things - they had
GPIB connected disks for some old computers. In some ways it was
similar to old 8-bit SCSI :-)
Since NI supports Solaris SPARC, it would seem that Solaris x86 support
would be possible. Especially for the GPIB-Enet devices which use
ethernet for communication with the computer.
Stuart
using about >100 GPIB-Enet boxes i'd like a Solaris/x86 driver too. |
99% are sparc driven. The rest is driven by the well known blue screen.
/jörgen |
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Theo v. Werkhoven
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri May 20, 2005 12:35 am Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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The carbonbased lifeform Paul S. Brown inspired sci.electronics.equipment with:
| Quote: | Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
Steven Hill <news@waroffice.net> writes:
I don't even know what GPIB is :-) but perhaps this is screaming
for some generic "Windows driver wrapper" for Solaris/x86.
GPIB is "general purpose interface bus" (check
e.g. http://www.microlink.co.uk/gpib.html), but it seems it failed to
propagate as it is not very well known today...
Formerly HPIB, which is *very* well known in lab equipemnt circles, or
anything decent and old with either a Hewlett-Packard of Agilent
Technologies badge on it.
I know. In my student days (or thereabouts), I was writing/maintaining
some code for driving this stuff. But what I am saying is that e.g.
everybody knows about RS232/432, USB, Centronics, ..., but GPIB is not in
that category ...
If it's IEE488 then it's the same as the User port that Commodore
VIC20/C64/C128/Plus4 all had. Time was when there was a *lot* of hobbyist
support for it, but it's unfortunatley getting far enough into the past now
that everybody's forgetting it ever existed.
|
Afair only the "professional" machines (CBM3xxx), and the first PET2000 used
to have (a subset of) IEEE488-1.
But in elektronics labs GPIB/HPIB is still widly used for control and
readout, the pros of a dedicated instrument bus with multiple interrupt
levels, a pre-determined bus-speed and most important, an absolute
standard way of controlling the instruments very much outweights the
cons of the heavy, inflexible cables and special, costly interface.
Theo
--
theo at van-werkhoven.nl ICQ:277217131 SuSE Linux
linuxcounter.org: 99872 Jabber:muadib at jabber.xs4all.nl AMD XP2100+ 512MB
"ik _heb_ niets tegen Microsoft, ik heb iets tegen
de uitwassen *van* Microsoft" |
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Rick Jones
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri May 20, 2005 12:35 am Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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|
In comp.sys.sun.hardware Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Longer than that! I remeber IEEE 488 ports being available for my
BBC Micro, from circa 1982. I think even then it was an established
standard.
|
Per:
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/timeline/hist_70s.html
1975
HP simplifies instrument systems by creating a standard interface. The
electronics industry adopts the HP-IB (interface bus) as an
international standard to allow one or more instruments to connect
easily to a computer.
rick jones
--
portable adj, code that compiles under more than one compiler
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH... |
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Tony Williams
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri May 20, 2005 3:11 am Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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|
In article <Pine.SOL.4.58.0505191156210.11347@zen.rite-group.com>,
Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Longer than that! I remeber IEEE 488 ports being available for
my BBC Micro, from circa 1982. I think even then it was an
established standard.
|
From Intelligent Interfaces. I still have a backup
spare down in the shed if you are interested. :)
--
Tony Williams. |
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Chris Newport
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri May 20, 2005 6:33 am Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
|
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Rich Teer wrote:
| Quote: | On Thu, 19 May 2005, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
or read them from your computer. It's been around for the last fifteen
years or so.
Longer than that! I remeber IEEE 488 ports being available for my
BBC Micro, from circa 1982. I think even then it was an established
standard.
|
I had an HP85 computer hooked up to a spectrum analyser in 1978, and
GPIB was certainly well established and supported by most instrument
vendors by then, so I would guess that it has been around since at least
the early 1970s.
HP invented the standard as HP-IB and it was later adopted as IEEE 488,
which is a published standard. |
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Joerg Schilling
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri May 20, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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In article <d6jeq7$o4v$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk>,
Chris Newport <crn.news@nospam.netunix.com> wrote:
| Quote: | I had an HP85 computer hooked up to a spectrum analyser in 1978, and
GPIB was certainly well established and supported by most instrument
vendors by then, so I would guess that it has been around since at least
the early 1970s.
|
We did check radio sets using spectrum analysers and many other
automated HP-IB devices on a HP-1000 in 1975 while I was working for
Telefunken.
The devices did not look really new at that time.
--
EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily |
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Thomas Tornblom
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri May 20, 2005 4:35 pm Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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My Tektronix TDS-210 scope I bought a few years ago and added an FFT
and communications module to has GP-IB, RS232 and parallel. I have
only been able to use the serial and parallel yet. Parallel for
producing postscript printouts and serial to control it.
I see their current models can also be equipped with GP-IB. |
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Chris Newport
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri May 20, 2005 4:35 pm Post subject:
Re: GPIB board drivers for Solaris |
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Joerg Schilling wrote:
| Quote: | We did check radio sets using spectrum analysers and many other
automated HP-IB devices on a HP-1000 in 1975 while I was working for
Telefunken.
The devices did not look really new at that time.
|
I think we should be impressed by a standard which has remained in use
unchanged for over 30 years. A design engineer somewhere deserves some
kind of medal. |
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