[time-nuts] Prologix

[Brent Gordon]

Mike Feher wrote:
> A friend has a 5335A counter and bought a Prologix adaptor for it to collect
> data. He wrote the software and has had extremely good results. He offered
> to do the same for me utilizing my NI adaptor so I could use it for my
> various counters. Unfortunately he ran into problems and feels he needs a
> special version of basic in order to make my $500 NI adaptor work. I admit
> to my total lack of programming ability. I still use GWBASIC, and only to
> crunch heavy numbers. I have no idea how to interface any software to
> communicate with an instrument, and, maybe am too old to want to learn as it
> seems a lot of people do it on a regular basis already. If this becomes too
> difficult I may have to buy a Prologix unit from Abdul. While I am all for
> doing that, and I bought my NI before Abdul had his version going, I was
> also under the impression that if the Prologix can do it the NI can do it,
> but, not necessarily the other way around. My friend mentioned API calls,
> whatever they are. Any suggestions? Thanks - Mike
>
>
> Mike B. Feher, N4FS
> 89 Arnold Blvd.
> Howell, NJ, 07731
> 732-886-5960
>   
Mike,

You should have gotten the NI-488.2 CD with your GPIB card.  On that CD 
are the dlls (Dynamic Link Libraries) to talk to the card.  You can use 
the dlls in any language that supports dlls or ActiveX.  Sorry to say, 
GWBASIC is not one of those languages.  Visual Basic 6 works well and 
I've even done GPIB data acquisition directly into Excel using VBA 
(Visual Basic for Applications, Excel's macro language).  VBA is part of 
Excel.  Alternatively, you can get a free Visual Basic Express at 
http://www.microsoft.com/express/vb/  I haven't tried VB Express, but I 
think it will work.  Normally, I do all my GPIB programming in LabVIEW.

Brent