Has anyone used DDK with Mac OS X?

[AlanArmstead]

The National Instruments Vendor ID is 1093.

I just went through the process with an M Series board, used the driver wizard, created the inf file, put it in the pal/inf directory, restarted, and the VISA Config Utility displayed my device.  Did you type 1092 on accident?  If not, please give it a try with 1093.

-Alan A.

[IanC]

yes I did mean 1093. Sorry about that. I tried it again just to be sure, and got the same syptoms as before: it won't install the .inf file in nipal/inf/ and copying the file in from another directroy doesn't result in the cards getting recognized after a restart. Out of curiosity was the box you tried it on running OS X 10.4, or an older release? Thank you.

[gcs]

The INF file specifies which devices should be controlled by NI's driver. It is not used by Mac OS X but, rather, by NI's driver. You only need to create a single INF file for each type of device. If multiple devices are installed, each one will be recognized.

To provide more information, would you invoke the following commands from a terminal and respond with the output:

ls -alR /Library/Application\ Support/National\ Instruments/nipal/

sudo /sbin/SystemStarter stop "nipal"

sudo /sbin/SystemStarter start "nipal"


Also, would you post the contents of the generated INF file?

Thanks!

geoff

[IanC]

I have attached the .inf file (submission page made me save it with a .txt extension, but it is the same file), and for clarity--I just took a screen shot of the terminal window when I ran those commands. Thanks for answering those .inf-file questions as well. That clears up a number of things that have been confusing me about this system. Thank you.

Ian Clark

[gcs]

Two additional questions:

After running those commands, was the device displayed in the NI-VISA Configuration application?

What version of Mac OS X are you running?

Thanks!

geoff

[IanC]

I am running OS X 10.4.5, and no unfortunatly they didn't show up in the configuration app after I ran those commands. I still get "My Computer", and nothing else. Thank you.

[gcs]

Okay, attached is a command-line utility that will output all the devices attached to your system. Please invoke it and reply with the output.

Thanks!

geoff

[IanC]

Fascinating! What does this utility do? Since it coughs up ~10 entries for four PCI slots it can't be searching the bus for physical devices. Are these driver stubs (I think that's what apple calls them), or somthing of that nature? Alright--thank you Geoff. I certainly appreciate your help.

Ian Clark

[gcs]

I misspoke before, the utility doesn't enumerate all PCI devices, just those associated with the NI driver. It also enumerates PCI bridges. The utility only found PCI bridges on your system, not your PCI-6259. I assume that the PCI-6259 and its INF file were installed when the utility was run. Were they? If so, we now know that at the lowest level, the NI driver isn't detecting the PCI-6259.

I'm not sure, but this may be due to a known bug that has been fixed. If you don't mind, try installing NI-VISA 3.5 and seeing if that addresses this problem.

If not, if you have the Mac OS X developer tools installed (If not, I believe they are available on your Mac OS X Tiger Install DVD), run the IORegistryExplorer (/Developer/Applications/Utilities/IORegistryExplorer), Dump the Registry Dictionary to Output (Tools menu), and attach the console log with this information (/Applications/Utilities/Console). This will determine if the operating system is detecting your device. We can then go from there.

Thanks!

geoff

[IanC]

---I assume that the PCI-6259 and its INF file were installed when the utility was run. Were they?---

yes the cards were in and I made sure that the inf file had the correct information/was in the correct place and restarted before I ran the utility.


---I'm not sure, but this may be due to a known bug that has been fixed. If you don't mind, try installing NI-VISA 3.5 and seeing if that addresses this problem.---

Installing NI-VISA 3.5 didn't seem to help. I deleted the old inf files, made new ones (with the version 3.5 driver wizard can write the .inf directly to .../nipal/inf/), restarted and ran the Configuration app. Same thing--just MyComputer.


---Dump the Registry Dictionary to Output (Tools menu), and attach the console log with this information (/Applications/Utilities/Console). This will determine if the operating system is detecting your device.---

I attached the dictionary. If I'm reading it correctly, the system does recognizes the cards (it looks like there is an instantiation of IOPCIDevice for each of the two cards)--they also show up in the system profiler under PCI cards (profiler knows what slots they are in and lists the correct vendor, and part number). Thank you.


Ian Clark