Interested in advice on what IDE to use when creating C programs accessed by LabVIEW.

[Scott Allen]

Currently we have a DOS based C program on a 486 talking to a Keithley DAS-1600 data aquisition card which is being used to control an instrument in our lab. The plan is to update the software side of this system using LabVIEW. The thought is that as some of the logic and control is very time sensitive we would try to ammalgamate portions of the C code with a controling LabVIEW program. My thought is to strip down the C program such that only functionality is left (i.e. no menus, no graphing etc) compile that into a dll and then access functions from the dll via LabVIEW.

Does this sound like a reasonable thing to do?

Currently the C program must be compiled
in a very old Boreland IDE (circa 1991, I believe).
I would like to move to a new IDE to compile and manipulate the C program; does anyone have any suggestions from experience as to what would be a good IDE to use?

I also would like to use if at all possible a NI PCI-6025e DAQ card that I have:

Is it possible to make C function calls to a National Instrument's PCI-6025e data
aquistion card? (the reason I ask is that as it stands the C program makes calls to the
Keithley card)

Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Scott

[Enrique]

Yes! Sound like an good approach.

I recommend you to read the following document, as it include all the necessary information about C, dll and LabVIEW:

Using External Code in LabVIEW
http://digital.ni.com/manuals.nsf/web_productcurrent/4F1447F7CD83D6D88625690D00637CED?OpenDocument

Also, check Keithley website. I checked and it seems that they have drivers for your data aquisition card for LabVIEW. Click the "Software Download" link:

Model DAS-1600/1400/1200 Series High-Speed Analog and Digital I/O Boards
http://www.keithley.com/PRODUCTS/modelNumber_tmpl.jsp?page=main&productType=pci/isa_plug-in_boards&modelNumbers=DAS-1200,DAS-1400,DAS-1600

Best regards;
EJV