GPIB via DOS emulation/legacy hardware upgrade

[wea100]

I have a user with an Olympus UH3 acoustic microscope, circa 1988 that communicates via a A DOS based program through a GPIB ISA card on an old '286 HP Vectra PC.

We would like to update the computer to something sustainable, and I'm looking for sugestions. Hopefully, somebody has some experience with DOS programs on more modern equipment.

I am considering the purchase of a PCI based GPIB IEE-488.2 card to replace the vintage card, but I'm wondering what the latest hardware/OS combination is that will communicate via direct hardware access (interrupts, etc.). 

Does anybody have experience running an emulated DOS on things like this that require direct hardware access? If not, suggestions on running actual DOS would be appreciated. I do have an old Pentium III that I might try, and at least that supports a VGA monitor and IDE hard drives. This HP '286 belongs in a museum 😉

[Gloorious_Leader]

Hey wea100,

Since NI-488.2 v3.0, MS-DOS support for Windows 7 (32-bit) is included in the driver. Take a look at the Readme file and User Manual for additional information.

I haven't done any DOS on mondern equipment, so I don't know for sure this will work the way you are looking for it to, but it might be worth exploring a bit. Hope it helps at any rate!

[wea100]

So to be clear, you believe that the DOS program, which expects direct access to the hardware, will work with the driver running under Windows 7 32-bit? That would be very nice, and certainly worth a try. Would you recommend the PCI or USB version of the GPIB interface? Since I'll be buying it, I'll have my choice. I'm thinking that PCI will be more reliable.

[Gloorious_Leader]

From the User Manual:

"NI-488.2 DOS support allows GPIB programs compiled for MS-DOS to run on 32-bit Windows. DOS support is enabled by default on 32-bit Windows systems."

DMA and IRQ are also still supported, so I would expect it to work, but I've never tried it before. I agree that PCI is likely the better option over USB in this case.

[JasonSmith]

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@wea100 wrote:

So to be clear, you believe that the DOS program, which expects direct access to the hardware, will work with the driver running under Windows 7 32-bit? That would be very nice, and certainly worth a try. Would you recommend the PCI or USB version of the GPIB interface? Since I'll be buying it, I'll have my choice. I'm thinking that PCI will be more reliable.

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If your application truly expects direct hardware access, it will not work. It it was written to communicate through the National Instruments driver for DOS, then this is still supported on 32-bit Windows. It should not matter whether you use USB, PCI, or any other supported interface on your Windows machine.

Be aware that this will NOT work on 64-bit Windows. There is no 16-bit or DOS subsystem on 64-bit Windows.