Can gpib analyzer be used to identify unknown instrument protocol

[ukincarlsbad]

I have a test system controlled by a Linux-based PC. One of the instruments has an undocumented GPIB interface. That is; I don't know what commands, etc., are sent to control it.

Can I use GPIB Analyzer running on a separate windows PC to monitor the bus and "reverse engineer" what the Linux-PC is sending to this instrument down the GPIB bus?

Thanks
James

[Geneva L.]

Hi, the GPIB analyzer can show you all the GPIB bus activity, including handshaking states, bus management line states (ATN, EOI, etc.), and data bytes transferred between the GPIB hardware in the Linux PC and the instrument. So, if you are trying to determine if the instrument responds to *IDN?, you can determine that from the analyzer. You can look at the GPIB Analyzer User Manual for more info about how you can use it. The last section talks about how to configure the Analyzer application for some common use cases.