Writing hardware driver for own device

[Oliver Friedrich]

Hallo,

this one seems to become a bigger project, so let me explain.

I've built a device (in fact I bought a kit) which is capable to interface a
GPIB instrument to a LAN, in fact it's the same box like NI offers.
Now I want to make this device usable within VISA, so I don't have to write
some proprietary weird TCP/GPIB driver for each instrument which is hooked
to that box.
Now I found out that NI offers a special NI488.2 driver software for their
TCP/GPIB solution. I've expected this and hence I know which communication
layer my own driver has to be associated to. After all, I have to write my
own NI488.2 driver !
Now then, my questions

1. What is the exact structure of layers from LV Applikation down to a piece
of Hardware. I
suppose it's Application-VISA-???/NI488.2/OS/BIOS/Hardware. I
believe that there is another level between VISA and NI488.2, maybe that
MAX, I don't know. Where can I get information or a specification about
that.

2. Since I know that my driver must be situated where NI488.2 is...what's
the specification for this driver? I need the information about how to
interface with the laer above and the layer below. NI should provide these
informations for hardware developpers, who want to develop a piece of
hardware operating under LabVIEW or better to say VISA.

Is there a VISA developper network or some newsgroup dealing with VISA
driver development ?

Please info, info, info...;-)

Oliver Friedrich

[Randy Solomonson]

Hello-

There are a couple of organizations that can help:
-vxipnp.org
-ivifoundation.org

These websites are dedicated to the open standards of VISA and IVI, respectively.

Randy Solomonson
Application Engineer
National Instruments

[pavanb]

For VISA refer, http://www.vxipnp.org/aispecs.htm.
http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/954feaeea92d90918625674b00658b83/f519b04553e2b464862569ef00034db0?opendocument, is a source code package for driver development for the GPIB-ENET/100. This only works for NI boards though.