Help identifying this ISA gpib board

[precaud]

I have two identical NI GPIB boards that I pulled from a working decommissioned Tekmate 2402A. They are 8-bit ISA boards. There are a confusing array of id numbers on these boards.

Next to the connector, the label says "GPIB-PCIIB   IEEE-488.2".

On the component side, it says "GPIB-PCII/IIA   ASSY181065-03 Rev.D"  and then the serial number.

On the back side of the board it says "181067-01  Rev.D".

The boards look identical to other PCII/IIA boards I've seen photos of, with one exception: the U2 switch block has only 9 switches, instead of 10 on the standard PCII/IIA card. The switch labels are the same, but the switch that selects PCII or PCIIA mode is missing (i.e. open), which would suggest that the card is set up to be used in PCIIA mode.

Problem is, they doesn't work in this mode. I have been unable to get either card to work with drivers in any mode. I've tried NI 488.2 Win98 drivers, and HTBasic drivers.

Does anyone know what exactly these cards are and how to use them? Any help would be appreciated.

[Thør]

Hey there,

Check out this forum.

It looks like someone else ran into this same issue, and "GPIB Guru" was able to help out. 

Check out the product page for this device for more info about what it does:

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/1238

[JasonSmith · Accepted solution]

Actually, the other post is not about the same hardware. Part number 181065-03 is a GPIB-PCIIB, which appears to have used the same board as the PCII/IIA, but requires a different driver. Unfortunately the newest driver for it is for Windows 3.1.

[precaud]

It appears you may be right, JasonS. I scoured through the ftp site, and found files for a PCIIB 488.2 board, and it is only supported for DOS and Win3.x . Odd that here is no documentation for this board, only the old PCIIB. Thx for the help.

[precaud]

It turns out that the 181065-03 boards are indeed PCII/IIA boards, but with two parts added to make them into PCIIB's. Remove R1 and U7 to restore it back into a fully functioning PCII/IIA, identical to a 181067-01 board.

Because the switch is missing that selects PCII or PCIIA mode, it defauts to PCII mode, which is best for Windows anyway. To switch it into PCIIA mode, solder a jumper across the pads where the missing switch would have been.

After discovering this today, I modified two -03 boards and they both work fine in DOS and Windows 98SE.

Enjoy!