Is a USB to GPIB dongle/convertor a difficult project ?

No, mid 80's. But the Dolch is older, got it used. Back in the late 70's you could not really do bitmap stuff on the small IBM pre-PC computers or on the Commodore but you could on the Apple (and on IBM mainframe systems). Possibly that's the reason why Apple became so popular with journalists.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

HPIB/GPIB was invented before computers or microprocessors were common in test labs. With just a heap of TTL and some switches, a beastly counter or DVM could be piped to a more beastly mechanical printer, and measurements could be logged without a computer. That's why it has the goofy talker/listener orientation.

John

Hmm, my father computerized the first lab and production line (cold rolled steel factory) in the early 60's, more than 10 years before GPIB made it into the labs. Don't know what they used for connections, probably some kind of TTY bus. And all he had was 2K of RAM which was considered huge in those days.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

For engineers, sure... but I suspect you'd be surprised at just how many GPIB-capable instruments were sold to be used as part of production line setups. Tektronix had a LOT of test equipment on their production lines, all being synchronized over GPIB to perform automated testing.

Some of our automated test setups use GPIB as well, although it's primarily because we still have some older, viable instruments around that we don't want to "put out to pasture yet" (not because we like it all that much!) -- you can bet that when we do the replacements will have Ethernet interfaces on them.

I have only seen very occasional use of GPIB in production. Lots of gear had it but there was nothing connected. Somehow I grew up with TTY and the serial bus just like my father, then completely skipped the GPIB era and went to Ethernet in the 90's. The few occasions where I did encounter GPIB it worked but in terms of enterprise management it was a drag. The topper was a guy some time around 2005 who was busy restoring a really old PC and installing Win3.2 or something on it. That was the only box that was able to talk to some of the GPIB. Trying to get any data from production to the central server was a major pain in the neck.

I really don't understand why HP didn't provide RS232 in addition. It's so easy and cheap. I mean, Dolch did that even on their lower-end analyzers so it wasn't rocket science. I used to take that on the road along with a Wang 8086 laptop. That plus a cheap D-Sub cable and I came back with perfect test data on file. The Wang had a built-in printer but I never really needed it.

GPIB drove me nuts. Here you have a $10k analyzer that has all the comms features one could wish and right next to it sits a $45k HP-machine that can't talk even RS232. Pathetic.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I wouldn't be surprised if it was something as simple as being so proud of their "new and improved" bus that they saw little need to add the "old fashioned" RS-232.

Plus, back in those days, they'd be using Jim's 1488/1489 and would have increased his retirement funds just a bit! :-)

---Joel

Yep, to me it always looked like NIH syndrome. Or Not-Proprietary-Enough-Phobia.

I did use those a lot. Some of that stuff is still in production.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Hurrumph! I was a direct employee of Motorola when I designed the

1488/1489. No royalties, though I did get $1K each for the patent applications.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave

Quite a few of my "legacy" parts are still manufactured, either by Motorola/OnSemi, or by Lansdale or Rochester who bought the rights from Motorola.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave

Last time I was at that client they used TI and National for those chips. It all depends where purchasing gets the best deal. ONSemi is usually quite competitive though, and now about the only semi mfg with a web site that works well.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

=20

d.

50* .

=20

=20

=20

=20

=20

=20

=20

=20

=20

=20

=20

n=20

=20

=20

=20

=20

=20

By '78 I had a Tektronix Signal Processing System that ran their SPS=20

-BASIC on a PDP-11, that did all that and more; no GUI - BASIC. I'd=20 added a pile of HP stuff to it. Never had any trouble with the Tek=20 gear or their interface but HPIB was the pits.

--=20 Keith

I suppose that it could be done though. PCCA Std. 101 defines all the necessary AT commands. Getting the scope to dial the phone may be an issue. Mixing voice and data streams is definitely an issue.

Correct. That is why we are seeing USB on instruments all over the place.

want

can

Or was it that the only drivers they had for their GPIB card was Windows 3.11? The early EISA NAtional Instruments cards were a pain in the ass. OTOH, Scientific Atlanta wrote their SATE software to run under windows 2.0, but failed to transfer the source code to Microdyne after they lost the patent infringement lawsuit and they contracted with Microdyne to maintain equipment that had been shipped to their existing customers.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Real time for that system, was probably on the order of several seconds. Armco Steel, in Middletown Ohio, built a computerized hot strip mill at that same time, using a huge 5 MB hard drive (40 inch platter?) with a 5 HP three phase motor. (I ended up with the three phase breaker box, with the ENGRAVED warning plate "DO NOT ENGAGE DISK DRIVE FOR FIVE FULL MINUTES").

Serial communications HAD to be used, because the mill was over a mile long. The computer system was replaced in the mid '80s when they had purchased the last remaining Westinghouse hard drive in the world, and no one was rebuilding them.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

They usually don't do that simultaneously but send the image to the email address of someone back at headquarters, then call a few minutes later to discuss it.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

want

can

Well, teh best thing would be not to need GPIB at all. The next best thing is a hardware converter to RS232 or USB.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

This one was actually realtime. Stopping the cold-rolled steel line was not an option, ever. The contract specified that it be run as usual. Then they had to detect flaws in the material while it was passing through. My father said the real challenge was the data acquisition because there would be the occasional splat of grease falling off the gears of overhead cranes and right onto the steel.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

users

all

want

can

Microdyne built IEEE-488 ports into all their telemetry products, because their customers demanded it. After that, it became a legacy interface, even though the receivers had RS-232, RS-422 and 10/100 Ethernet interface a lot of customers insisted on being able to use IEEE-488 in existing systems. It appears that they still use it in current production RCB-2000.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida