Capture GPIB traffic

[ROMP]

Hi,

I need to capture traffic on the GPIB bus , but I have no access to the computer! Is there a way to set-up external system to capture and log all the traffic? 

There is an old, DOS running PC with control application I need to decypher and rewrite in LabVIEW. It is a complex application, communicating with 4 GPIB instruments. Is there a way to do this without any PC intervention?

Thank you.

romp

[Albert.Geven]

There are ways: The gpib analyzer from NI. But better try to write the application from scratch

[ROMP]

Thx, Albert

Yeah, writing from scratch is will be necessary anyway...but knowing the protocol would same me a LOT of time since a lot of know-how is involving and no documentation exsists anymore.

So, installing an GPIB+ card on my PC, hooking to the bus and running GPIB Analyzer will be enough to listen and log what is going on between control PC and instruments? Can I run NI-Spy to capture the traffic? I guess not in my case since there is no driver call to my 'listening' PC...

[Albert.Geven]

the analyzer will take care of that but maybe there are drivers available on IDnet

http://www.ni.com/devzone/idnet/

that solves a lot of driver problems already, only very special drivers are not available and you may always ask on this forum, you never know

[Siw]

I plan to buy a GPIB analyzer to capture my tester to external tester communication.

Searching from NI found the PCMCIA can use with a notebook but somehow it doesn't support Win 7.

Is there any sw driver for PCMCIA that can support Win 7?  

Beside that is there any alternative GPIB analyzer for Win 7 notebook?

Best regards,

Seng Wah

[Dennis_Knutson]

What PCMCIA are you referring to? The only analyzer options from NI are PCI or PCIe.

[Siw]

I found the support GPIB Analyzer interface for PCMCIA-GPIB+ at below link but it doesn't support Win 7.

http://download.ni.com/support/softlib/gpib/Windows/2.8.1/2.8.1%20NI-488.2%20ReadMe.html

The NI PCI & PCIe is use for Desktop PC. Right?

Is there any kind of adaptor /converter for PCI & PCIe to USB? ( for notebook use )

[Dennis_Knutson]

Not sure how you found that but if you had simply gone to the GPIB products page you would have seen everything that is currently for sale. New laptops don't support PCMCIA anyway.