Older CAN Hardware (NI USB-8473s, etc.) using NI-XNET

[JaremyP]

Hello. I'm wondering if older hardware devices for CAN interfaces are usable directly via the NI-XNET API. We would like to move away from supporting NI-CAN, but have ourselves and our customers using older devices like the NI USB-8473s. If we drop NI-CAN, can these older devices still be used via NI-XNET?

I know there's the compatibility layer. I understand that can be used to make NI-CAN applications work through XNET, but that's not what I am looking for.

Thank you.

[Hooovahh]

No, XNet is more than a software API.  It is a software API, but it is also a platform, with hardware requirements.  Your older hardware just doesn't have what is needed.  Buffer sizes, the microcontroller, the processing power, etc.

You can use the software layer without the hardware layer as demonstrated by my frame channel conversion wrapper.

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-39793

But advanced features of the XNet hardware can do really cool custom things when getting messages as a queue, single point, or stream, and even open multiple sessions to the hardware at once.  This is stuff the old hardware just does not support, sorry.