GPIB users/experts/programmers, step in here please

[N8YX]

A thread where the concepts, usage of and user experience with this signalling standard are discussed.

What's your favorite stand-alone controller? Interface card? PC-based software package?

As for me, I'm looking for details on programming the Tektronix TM5000-series mainframes and their related plug-ins. I don't feel like spending $3500 for LabVIEW and am seriously considering the development of an embedded, dedicated controller which will handle, say, a half-dozen devices simultaneously. Maybe two signal generators, a set of relays in an MI5010/50M40 setup...and a 50M30/50M10 card in same, along with a frequency counter or DMM for the sampling functions. The idea (one of many) is to develop an automated test suite for receiver or transceiver alignment.

[kf0rt]

Is GPIB even used these days? HP standard from wayback, as I recall, but that's about all I know.

[X-Rated]

I have been trying to find a macro that will read from a GPIB into an excel spreadsheet. No luck yet. But yeah. GPIB has been around for many decades.

[XE1/N5AL]

I have a National Instruments PCI-based GPIB adapter that I bought off of Ebay, along with a USB-GPIB controller that I bought from Abdul Nizar, at his company: Prologix. I either use the tools provided by John Miles' KE5FX GPIB Toolkit, or I write the C-code myself to run under either Linux or Windows.

My interests have been in the control of some Hewlett Packard equipment that I have. Some of it doesn't have front panel user controls, so it has to be run over GPIB.

P.S., I forgot to mention a good GPIB overview page on Didier Juges' website: KO4BB. KO4BB is a current member of the same amateur radio club I joined way back when I was a long-haired, 15 year-old kid: The Playground Amateur Radio Club, W4ZBB, in Ft. Walton Beach, FL.

[XE1/N5AL]

I have been trying to find a macro that will read from a GPIB into an excel spreadsheet. No luck yet. But yeah. GPIB has been around for many decades.

Here's an old 2003 document that might be interesting. I just skimmed through it, but it looks like they are doing what you are trying to do: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA420445

[N2CHX]

I've never programmed an interface to GPIB. Believe it or not, I never ran into anything in a radio station that ever used it until three years ago, when a brand-new, fully VoIP-based broadcast audio console we bought used GPIB for remote starts and tallies.

I have written device drivers for parallel and serial ports though. Wish I could be more help.

[N8YX]

I'm not so much looking for device drivers as the top-level application suites which actually control the attached peripherals. As pointed out above: NI, Prologix and a host of others offer a number of adapters along with device drivers that can be used in conjunction with a PC for device control.

It's the application side of the stack which is a little thin...

Just shot an e-mail off to John, 'FX inquiring as to the support of TM5000 peripherals and offered to write some middleware if they're not currently supported.

Here's a potential embedded solution:

http://forums.parallax.com/showthrea...er-speaks-GPIB

The cool thing about a Propeller is cost ($89 for the complete development kit) and the fact that it supports VGA/keyboard/mouse (via $13 add-on). The wheels: They're turning. :chin:

[N2CHX]

Ah, well if all you need to do is push some data to a hardware port.... Not too difficult. Documentation on what to send where to do what, is all you need to get started. Almost any programming platform will work. I did direct interfacing to hardware ports with VB for years. Truly easy if the device comes with its own drivers for your O/S.

As for embedded... Yeah, $89 is cheap for a programmer. I wonder if Arduino does GPIB.

[X-Rated]

Here's an old 2003 document that might be interesting. I just skimmed through it, but it looks like they are doing what you are trying to do: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA420445

WOW. Thanks. This is what I needed.

[WX7P]

WHOOOSH!

That's the sound of this thread going WAY over my head.