I want to use an old Daqcard 1200 with Labview 8.5. Where is the driver?

[morsejl]

I'm using Labview 8.5. I have an old Daqcard 1200 and there doesn't seem to be a driver for it. I downloaded an older version of NI-DAQ that claimed to have support for that card, but when I tried to install it wanted me to uninstall my newer version. Is there a way to use this card without going back to an ancient version of NI-DAQ?

[Gabi1]

i recall pci1200 is a legacy device that work with MAX drivers up to 6.9 only.

if you want to use it you will have to make a clean installation of this driver, downloadable from NI site. Yet, if you have already a later version installed, the only solution is to format the computer...

for more info look here

[Vikas_K]

I have not tried this with LV8.5, but I think the information given in this Knowledge Base Article will work if followed correctly (like choosing the Target folder, etc).  I had an old PCMCIA DAQCard 516 which I managed to install and use with LV7.1 without any issues.

I do recommend understanding the procedure thoroughly before doing any changes.

[morsejl]

I don't think I'll bother with all that (I read through the other thread that you linked). I found this hardware laying around and figured I'd use it if possible, but I don't think it's worth it. I think it is a rather bad policy for NI to stop supporting hardware like that. I'm fairly new to NI and I'm finding that they aren't a very easy company to work with. Heck, you can't even ask somebody a question on the phone unless you buy a service upgrade package- that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

We've previously been working with Dasylab software/IOtech hardware. Dasylab certainly doesn't have the capabilities of Labview, but to throw together a simple data acquisition program (which is 99% of what I need it for) is about 1/100th as complicated with the former. I've also been working on using my IOTech hardware with Labview, and I got free sample Labview apps from them to accomplish this. I also got a lot of FREE and courteous phone support from them while getting things working.

[Gabi1]

i cant comment on service quality from the NI staff in your country, but i do think that this is a standard thing for older cards to become obsolete, therefore not supported. However, if you use a stand-alone computer for this card, you should have no problem using it, even with the most recent version of Labview, as long as you do not use a late version of the NIdaq drivers.

If not, for a few hundred $ you could buy a higher performance card from NI.

Have you looked trough the express vis? they will help you configure data aquisition very easily. Also, there are quite a bit of examples, that allow to get started quite easily.

Good luck!

[Dennis_Knutson]

The DAQcard 1200 is a very old card and I don't think it's very realistic to expect NI to support each and every legacy device in the latest DAQ drivers. As already mentioned. if you want to use the card with LabVIEW, you just have to install the legacy driver.

Paying for phone support is extremely common - especially with companies with a large user base. Phone support is very expensive (unless you outsource it ) and in my experience, NI's compares favorably to other equipment vendors I've dealt with. This forum you are using is one of the best I've ever used.

p.s. IOTech is an NI owned company.

[morsejl]

Unless there is some specific technical problem with interfacing to the old equipment, I don't think it is unreasonable at all to expect them to include drivers for legacy equipment. It would cost them very little to throw a few extra drivers into a package that encompasses their whole product line anyway, other than the missed opportunity costs associated with not selling new equipment in a few rare cases (which is probably what this is really about) .

But anyway, it's not worth it for me to set up a machine just to run this thing. I'm just going to trash it. Thanks for the help.

[morsejl]

Unless there is some specific technical problem with interfacing to the old equipment, I don't think it is unreasonable at all to expect them to include drivers for legacy equipment. It would cost them very little to throw a few extra drivers into a package that encompasses their whole product line anyway, other than the missed opportunity costs associated with not selling new equipment in a few rare cases (which is probably what this is really about) .

But anyway, it's not worth it for me to set up a machine just to run this thing. I'm just going to trash it. Thanks for the help.

[Gabi1]

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Unless there is some specific technical problem with interfacing to the old equipment, I don't think it is unreasonable at all to expect them to include drivers for legacy equipment. It would cost them very little to throw a few extra drivers into a package that encompasses their whole product line anyway, other than the missed opportunity costs associated with not selling new equipment in a few rare cases (which is probably what this is really about) .

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NI will probably explain better than i do. in general, they changed the way the DAQ driver operates, introducing also DAQmx. this is incompatible with the old way of functionning. for you, it forces you to choose the driver version to use.

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But anyway, it's not worth it for me to set up a machine just to run this thing. I'm just going to trash it. Thanks for the help.

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why dont you sell it over ebay? there are quite a bit that would love using it, for cheap enough. for example, this was one of the latest cards exhibiting 3 counters, operating differently than the modern version. it has its usefullness...Also, if this is the only one card installed in the computer, you wont miss anything with the new drivers

[Dennis_Knutson]

You seem to think that there is a specific driver for each DAQ board. That is not the case and never has been (even for IOTech, I believe). When you have hundreds of different boards, it makes sense to have a single driver that will work with them all (or the ones you decide to support). For years, NI had the one driver that is now refered to as traditional DAQ. This is the driver that supported the DAQCard1200. At some point, probably because of the age of the board and that there were better boards available, the DAQBoard 1200 got dropped from the updates to the single driver. That did not mean that you could not use the old driver however. WHICH YOU CAN STILL DO.