I have been wanting a particular test system from a company called ABI Electronics in the UK
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They have a test rig called the system 8000 and it does just about everything you would need for a test bench. The only problem is it cost 50K and at this point it is just a fantasy. It can test analog and digital IC's in circuit and out. Along with all of the other components. It has a built in triple output power supply and a scope, DVM, counter, curve tracer, etc. It has tons of features but the one I really like, and am hoping someone has seen something similar and can point me to it is their test builder software. Say you want to test a pcb that comes out of a bowling alley pin setting machine. With the test builder you can setup the AC/DC power requirements and setup inputs and outputs to trigger things and also to view the outputs on the computer. If you need to add a DVM or two or a frequency counter to view some voltages it is all built into the system 8000 and you can put them all together with the software and see the status on the computer so that the board is thoroughly exercised so that you can trouble shoot it and be sure that it is working. Then you save it and if you ever have to come back to that pcb you just need to bring up the saved program and wire a few things up and then you can run it through all of the tests you set up. I sure this is confusing but I hope you get the jest of what I am looking for . Has anyone seen a software program that will let you control the equipment I have on my bench either through serial ports or GPIB and you can build a test routine for different things? I know there is labView but I was hoping for something a little more ready to go. LabView takes awhile to learn and setup. Is there anything else out there someone might have some experience with that they can recommend? Thanks for taking the time to read this long post. Thanks Russ