Tektronix 494P and LabView?

[John Miles]

Hi --

I'm a GPIB newbie who has recently acquired an older spectrum analyzer
(Tektronix 494P, circa mid-80s) and bought a NatInst PCII/PCIIa card off of
eBay to go with it. I'm interested in the quickest route to getting screen
dumps from the 494P to my PC via the PCII card.

So my questions would be:

1) Should I use LabView? I'm not crazy about spending $1K or more for the
commercial version of the software, since this is just for my own
(hobby/personal) use in the ham shack. Are there freeware/shareware
equivalents for the type of basic GPIB graphing/plotting operations that I
want to do?

2) If I do use LabView, do I need an "instrument driver" specific to the
494P? I didn't see one on the ni.com site, so I assume tha
t if one is
necessary I'd have to write it myself (not necessarily a problem, but
something I'd like to avoid if possible).

3) Anyone else ever done any GPIB software development for the Tek 490
series analyzers? Would like to hear from anyone with similar experience.

Thanks!

-- john KE5FX
jmiles@pop.net or ke5fx@qsl.net
http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx

[jason]

You don't have to use LabVIEW to talk to a GPIB controller, but it is the
easiest approach. You can use Labwindows, Visual Basic, Visual C++, etc. You
just have to call gpib_32.dll properly. LabVIEW and Labwindows are made by
NI so naturally talking to NI gpib drivers is much easier with these
languages.

Try looking on Tektronix site for instrument driver if none can be found on
ni.com, sometimes they supply example vi's. I have never made an instrument
driver for these instruments but if you could find an example for a simular
instrument, perhaps you could modify it to work for your particular instr.
It wouldn't be too hard if you knew the commands the instrument likes.

"John Miles" wrote in message
news:3a1afb8c@newsgroups.ni.com...

> Hi --
>
> I'm a GPIB newbie who has recently acquired an older spectrum analyzer
> (Tektronix 494P, circa mid-80s) and bought a NatInst PCII/PCIIa card off
of
> eBay to go with it. I'm interested in the quickest route to getting
screen
> dumps from the 494P to my PC via the PCII card.
>
> So my questions would be:
>
> 1) Should I use LabView? I'm not crazy about spending $1K or more for the
> commercial version of the software, since this is just for my own
> (hobby/personal) use in the ham shack. Are there freeware/shareware
> equivalents for the type of basic GPIB graphing/plotting operations that I
> want to do?
>
> 2) If I do use LabView, do I need an "instrument driver" specific to the
> 494P? I didn't see one on the ni.com site, so I assume that if one is
> necessary I'd have to write it myself (not necessarily a problem, but
> something I'd like to avoid if possible).
>
> 3) Anyone else ever done any GPIB software development for the Tek 490
> series analyzers? Would lik
e to hear from anyone with similar experience.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -- john KE5FX
> jmiles@pop.net or ke5fx@qsl.net
> http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx
>
>
>

[John Miles]

Jimbo wrote:
>
> You don't have to use LabVIEW to talk to a GPIB controller, but it is the
> easiest approach. You can use Labwindows, Visual Basic, Visual C++, etc. You
> just have to call gpib_32.dll properly. LabVIEW and Labwindows are made by
> NI so naturally talking to NI gpib drivers is much easier with these
> languages.
>

Thanks -- I managed to talk to the 494 with the dumb terminal program
that comes with the NI488.2 diagnostics package, so everything seems OK
hardware-wise. I'll probably just roll my own control / graphing
program; it doesn't look as involved as it originally did.

> Try looking on Tektronix site for instrument driver if none can be found on
> ni.com, sometimes they supply example vi's. I have never made an instrument
> driver
for these instruments but if you could find an example for a simular
> instrument, perhaps you could modify it to work for your particular instr.
> It wouldn't be too hard if you knew the commands the instrument likes.

Didn't see any existing drivers on Tek's site, but once the programming
manual shows up it ought to be fairly obvious, I imagine.

-- jm

------------------------------------------------------
http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx
Note: My E-mail address has been altered to avoid spam
------------------------------------------------------

[Mike T]

John,

I was a Tek AE in a former life... have you tried calling Tek's
customer support? They're surprisingly decent guys and they might have
some old (possibibly DOS) utility software kicking around that they can
give you. Come to think of it, I seem to recall they have some of that
old stuff up on their web site www.tektronix.com. click or search on
support. Good luck.

Do you have a manual for the 494P? That's what you'd really need no
matter what language you choose...

Mike

p.s. to reply, remove the underscores and reply to
m_i_k_e_t@flashcom.net


John Miles wrote:
>
> Hi --
>
> I'm a GPIB newbie who has recently acquired an older spectrum analyzer
> (Tektronix 494P, circa mid-80s) and bought a NatInst PCII/PCIIa card off of
> eBay to go with it. I'm inte
rested in the quickest route to getting screen
> dumps from the 494P to my PC via the PCII card.
>
> So my questions would be:
>
> 1) Should I use LabView? I'm not crazy about spending $1K or more for the
> commercial version of the software, since this is just for my own
> (hobby/personal) use in the ham shack. Are there freeware/shareware
> equivalents for the type of basic GPIB graphing/plotting operations that I
> want to do?
>
> 2) If I do use LabView, do I need an "instrument driver" specific to the
> 494P? I didn't see one on the ni.com site, so I assume that if one is
> necessary I'd have to write it myself (not necessarily a problem, but
> something I'd like to avoid if possible).
>
> 3) Anyone else ever done any GPIB software development for the Tek 490
> series analyzers? Would like to hear from anyone with similar experience.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -- john KE5FX
> jmiles@pop.net or ke5fx@qsl.net
> http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx


--
Mike T