GPIB board drivers for Solaris

"Michael Vilain" skrev i en meddelelse news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.dca.giganews.com...

Obviously a very sweeping conclusion based on little information ...

This is fine as far as it goes and gives the MBA's an opportunity to spout new verbiage on powerpoint and sound reel klever:

However The attitude it goes too far when it goes like this:

Customer: "We think there is a problem with your product, I need these issues solved", Business: "you need to upgrade to the next version of our $$$Product", Customer: "fine, but before I do that, I need to know if that will solve those issues, I just reported to you" Business: "We can't tell you unless you also buy a Support Contract".. Customer: "Will I get a refund, If you lie?" Business: "Could I have your credit card number" Customer: "Go #¤%& yourself"

Sure: Borland C++ was ejected on pretty much the same script way back in Ver. 4.1. .. and never missed.

No wonder they're not doing well if they won't even take your money...

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I recall HPIB back in the 1980's. I think that's what the OP is referring to because Googling for HPIB give hits for GPIB as well as HPIB boards. This was used for data acquisition equipment and had it own bus.

I think the OP is blowing smoke out their ears because they expect this to be free and SUN hasn't really pursued this "market", focusing on general purpose computing rather than workstations and lab automation.

Expectations are a strange thing. They make people behave irrationally or illogically sometimes. I guess if the OP wants to run Solaris, they need to pony up the bucks for the drivers or move to another platform.

[These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move on.]

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GPIB is IEEE-488. It is an 8-bit parallel bus with good handshaking and reasonable performance (for the time). It is used in high-end electronic test equipment and such. It allowed for multiple instruments on a single, well shielded bus. Connectors stack for either star or daisy chain type connections. HP (now Agilent) used it for any high end instrument. We use it for connecting precision digital voltmeters and sources in an optics lab. These instruments have ONLY a GPIB interface. Some of the lower end HP (now Agilent) instruments have serial and GPIB interfaces but the most accurate (quite expensive) DVMs from Agilent have ONLY GPIB. I think the same is true of other test and measurement equipment manufacturers.

As an aside, the Agilent web site had a doc stating that serial should never be used for data collection on Windows as the Windows serial driver was flawed for flow control. The doc (which was there

6 months ago) suggested using GPIB on Windows if reliable data transfer was required.

In the old days, HP used GPIB for all sorts of things - they had GPIB connected disks for some old computers. In some ways it was similar to old 8-bit SCSI :-)

Since NI supports Solaris SPARC, it would seem that Solaris x86 support would be possible. Especially for the GPIB-Enet devices which use ethernet for communication with the computer.

Stuart

GPIB is "general purpose interface bus" (check e.g.

but it seems it failed to propagate as it is not very well known today...

Dragan

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!!! Sender/From address is bogus. Use reply-to one !!!

I know. In my student days (or thereabouts), I was writing/maintaining some code for driving this stuff. But what I am saying is that e.g. everybody knows about RS232/432, USB, Centronics, ..., but GPIB is not in that category ...

Dragan

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I don't even know what GPIB is :-) but perhaps this is screaming for some generic "Windows driver wrapper" for Solaris/x86.

Casper

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There was a General Purpose Interface Bus adaptor on my 1982 GRiD laptop. Right next to the connection for the paper-tape reader ...

-Mike

GPIB is General Purpose Instrument Bus or something like that; also known as HPIB and IEEE-something. It's used to interface suitably equipped electronic instruments to a computer; e.g. hook up volt meters, frequency counters, printers, oscilloscopes, etc, etc, and control them or read them from your computer. It's been around for the last fifteen years or so.

Formerly HPIB, which is *very* well known in lab equipemnt circles, or anything decent and old with either a Hewlett-Packard of Agilent Technologies badge on it.

I am surprised there isn't more Solaris support, but since my work makes me poke HP-UX boxes, it tended to be HP-UX stuff that was shipped in your rack of microwave gear or whatever...

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In response to what Stuart Biggar posted in news:FH1je.9200$Ri4.3735@okepread07:

I used to run a compny that made IEEE488(GPIB) controllers that are controlled by an RS232 serial link.

I still have enough bits to make a few more, if anyone is interested.

I expect this address to get saturated with spam soon, at which time I shall kill it off: snipped-for-privacy@sneakemail.com

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GPIB is IEEE-488, a more than 30 year old invention from HP. It has been developed mainly for automated tests systems. There are e.g. meters, power supplies and similar that may be controled via IEEE-488

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If it's IEE488 then it's the same as the User port that Commodore VIC20/C64/C128/Plus4 all had. Time was when there was a *lot* of hobbyist support for it, but it's unfortunatley getting far enough into the past now that everybody's forgetting it ever existed.

P.

Funny as it may seem, even MY laptop has a paper-tape reader connector. It's also known as.. RS232. Yep, good-old RS232 is what you connected your paper punch and/or tape readers.

Longer than that! I remeber IEEE 488 ports being available for my BBC Micro, from circa 1982. I think even then it was an established standard.

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HP simplifies instrument systems by creating a standard interface. The electronics industry adopts the HP-IB (interface bus) as an international standard to allow one or more instruments to connect easily to a computer.

rick jones

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Afair only the "professional" machines (CBM3xxx), and the first PET2000 used to have (a subset of) IEEE488-1. But in elektronics labs GPIB/HPIB is still widly used for control and readout, the pros of a dedicated instrument bus with multiple interrupt levels, a pre-determined bus-speed and most important, an absolute standard way of controlling the instruments very much outweights the cons of the heavy, inflexible cables and special, costly interface.

Theo

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The carbonbased lifeform mario inspired sci.electronics.equipment with:

Current-loop most of the time (20mA). Same as with the old teletype consoles and Telex machines.

Theo

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