LOW LEVEL GPIB

[XxtianX]

Hi Frank,

Thank you for that very informative reply.

As I understand it, it is cost-prohibitive to deploy GPIB+ cards to each GPIB bus? Just to make sure: you're trying to monitor many separate GPIB busses, correct? A "bus" constitutes all devices physically connected to each other using a GPIB cable. You would only need one GPIB+ card to monitor a bus with many devices.

Ah I see so the gpib + is not a one is to one connection? it is multiple? isee why it is very expensive... but I simply can't implement it due to the distance and other some factors. the TNT4882 was my hope for this project. I think NI used the TNT4882 for the gpib+ is because they want to create a snooping device that is IEEE 488.2 compliant.... is my understanding correct?

Finally, if you can't deploy GPIB+ cards to each bus you need to monitor, would it be possible for the computers controlling each GPIB bus to report what is happening? In other words, have each PC publish the GPIB commands and data as it sends and receives them, then read this data from one server machine?

I have tried this... I have create a program in labview using IO Trace it was successfull but the main problem is when i tried to run the MAIN GUI of the Tester Program and that alone saturated the system resources even in PXI platforms so and adding the IOtrace Labview program that I made contributes to the test time and that was unforgivable. I have a question can IOtrace run on 2.7 version?

[Frank_L.]

The GPIB+ hardware we sell is intended to monitor and debug traffic on a GPIB bus. A GPIB bus consists of multiple devices hooked together in either a linear or star fashion. For example, if you have a GPIB cable starting at your GPIB+ card, you can connect it to a GPIB controller card, which connects to an instrument, then have another GPIB cable which hooks onto that and connects to another instrument. You would then have two instruments, a controller, and your GPIB+ card on one GPIB bus, and you would be able to monitor all of them from your GPIB+ card. 

The TNT4882 is an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit which is optimized for high data throughput while maintaining IEEE 488.2 compatibility. We use this component in our GPIB hardware as part of a turnkey solution which works out of the box for customers. We also offer the chip itself to customers who would like to develop their own GPIB hardware around it. I believe this is what you originally saw. In addition to selling the chip, we also sell a development board which can be used to test an application using the chip. We offer some supporting materials (source code, manuals) for the TNT4882 and development board, but this would not mean that it would be ready to use out of the box, as the GPIB+ card would.

I'm sorry, but I don't think I understand your last question. Are you trying to upgrade your version of NI I/O Trace? Instructions for that can be found here:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/A1F611E9E40503FB86257186003B4153

[rickdee]

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