Using GPIB-232CT-A on Win11 with Max

[drhex]

Hi,

I am trying to talk to my 3458A from my Win11 box using VISA via a GPIB-232CT-A in S mode I have sticking around - can get  it to work fine via putty but no dice in Max. Given this is just a serial link and there continues to be a RS232 product on sale I hoped the command structure would still be supported, but even entering direct commands in the send box doesn't yield any results. Is this possible or am I on the wrong track here?

Thanks,

Florian

[santo_13]

Are you sending commands as per the GPIB-232CT-A manual for S-mode?

https://download.ni.com/support/manuals/370898a.pdf

Can you share more info on how you set up MAX for communication and show how you are using it in Putty?

[drhex]

I am using instructions as per the manual, mostly wrt and rd - this works fine. Trying the test pane in Max doesn‘t work at all though, seems the command set isn‘t supported any longer. 

[rolfk]

NI-488.2 does not support the GPIB-232CT since at least version 2.2, but most likely as far back as 2.0 or something. No easy way to find out from the online release notes as they only go as far back as 17.0 and the version 2.2 release notes from 2004 for Windows 2000/XP/Me/98 do not mention support for this device already. But those ancient versions almost certainly won't load on a recent Windows box anyhow.

NI-VISA is just the user facing unified instrument control API. For its hardware specific interfacing it relies on the specific driver and for GPIB interfaces from NI this is always the NI-488.2 driver. It doesn't matter that this box could also be accessed through the VISA ASRL interface. That's not how GPIB support in VISA works.

You can of course create your own GPIB compatible LabVIEW driver using VISA ASRL, but the built in VISA GPIB won't be a go for this box.

According to this thread: https://forums.ni.com/t5/Instrument-Control-GPIB-Serial/How-do-you-interface-a-GPIB-232CT-A-with-Win... the NI-488.2 driver that was compatible with Windows XP already did not support the GPIB-232CT. That was likely NI-488.2 v2.2 or so.

[drhex]

Thanks Rolf, makes sense. I will extend the software I am using here to support the native command set then.