PCI under Windows 3.11 and LabVeiw 3.11

[BobK2]

I Have been asked to ressurect a very old test system an add a PCI card to the mix.  It is an old Dimension P90 running Windows 3.11 and Labvew 3.11.  The PC has a PCI slot but I am not sure if the OS or that version of LabView supports the PCI bus.

Should I go back to my boss and tell him to forget it?

-Bob

Message Edited by BobK2 on 12-18-2007 08:00 PM

[Dennis_Knutson]

Windows 3.11 supported the pci bus but whether LabVIEW can will depend on the card and driver for it. You don't mention whether it's even an NI card but if it's something recent, you may not find a windows 3.11 driver for it. For example, 5.05 is the last version of NI-DAQ that supports win 3.1 and you would need to use a board that it supported.

[LabViewGuruWannabe]

I don't know what function you need the PCI card to perform, but you can sometimes find old ISA bus boards from some electronic recylce houses and ebay. Someone on this forum might have something sitting in a box collecting dust that might help.

B-)

[BobK2]

Thanks for the input.  The card they want to use is a Heidenhain IK220  card to interface to said company's encoders.  They dont show any support for Win3.11.

I was hoping to write my own drivers using calls top PCI Configuration Space, etc, but I dont recall any such support in LabView 3.11.

-Bob

[pallen]

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Should I go back to my boss and tell him to forget it?

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I think with something this old you really need to ask yourself what you'll be saving by spending a whole bunch of time trying to cobble up a working solution.   

Unless you've got some piece of legacy hardware that you can't replace and can't live without, it nearly always seems smarter to just replace the PC with something new.

[LabViewGuruWannabe]

I agree with Patrick. Even a $399 Dell PC would blow away anything that old, and that would make developing (even if you have to rewrite some old code) faster and easier.

B-)

[smercurio_fc]

That would probably mean that he would need to upgrade LabVIEW as well since LabVIEW 3.11 won't run with newer OSes. Unless, of course, he replaces the OS on the computer, but then he's basically got what he started with.

I don't remember what the system requirements were for LabVIEW 3.11. You should check and see if you can get away with installing Windows 95 or Windows 98. The manufacturer of the card may have support for those. Maybe even NT?

Still, the best option is to scrap it and go with new computer and upgraded LabVIEW, if it's within budget.

[BobK2]

My sensibilities tend to want to upgrade h/w and s/w but I am dealing with folks who tend to have a hard time of letting go of old stuff and breaking away budget for new.  They also wait until the 11th hour and then claim there is no time or money to "do it right".

The system has a number of existing ISA cards which do A/D D/A and are hard cabled into test drawers adn interface electronics.  Replacing these boards with modern equivalents will snowball into labor to upgrade cabling at the least.  The main new thing they want to add is this PCI interface board, which to me, looks like it is breaking the system..

What I and gleaning is that If LabView 3.11 cant support low level PCI configuration cycles on Windows 3.1, I probably wont be able to get this thing to work as is.  This is fine as I will come back to them and recommend a complete replacement/upgrade of h/w and s/w.  Better to do that now than string 'em along ant tell them later.

Thanks again for all your input.

-Bob

[LV_Pro]

Assuming that everything else works, what happens in a month when the very old caps on the motherboard die? A machine running 3.11 is probably at least 11 years old, and particularly if it has been sitting somewhere the components are old (realtime clock battery). Not to mention, if the hard drive crashes, well 40Mb was a good sized drive then, try and find one (I had trouble last spring looking for a 40Gb one for my son's  digital music recorder). I remember going through similar issues 5 years ago, would recommend that whatever cost savings there are in using the old Dell will be lost in increased development time and TTR (time to repair) if it dies.  Of course, that box load of blue LabVIEW floppies does have a certain nostalgic aspect.

[smercurio_fc]

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@LV_Pro wrote:
Of course, that box load of blue LabVIEW floppies does have a certain nostalgic aspect.

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The other day we found a 5.25" floppy here at work. If you're really feeling nostalgic I could send it to you.