To whomever it may concern,
I have recently installed some old AT-GPIB cards (NOT AT-GPIB/TNT), we had left over form some old projects, in systems running windows 95 and windows 98, the software for these cards is written with visual C++ 6.0. In order to make the software work with windows 95/98, I downloaded the 32 bit compatibility software.
During the development of the software I encountered the following problems:
(using only 1 GPIB card and one device, HP 86120B, GPIB address 11)
ibdev does not consistently return a device descriptor, for instance approximately 70% of the time it will return a valid number the remainder of the time the number returned will be in the 32000 range and the device (HP 86120B) will not respond.
If ibdev is given an incorrect address (example the device is set to address 11, and pad = 10) then ibdev will also return a number larger than 32000 (also the ERR bit is not set in ibsta), only occasionally will ibdev return -1 with an invalid pad.
Other issues are that strings are not consistently returned from the device, this issue is completely erratic and examples will be of little use.
The interactive control (both 16 and 32 bit) exhibit similar tendencies but to a much lesser degree than the C++ programs. Ibdev will return device descriptors in the 32000 range, however in this case the device will occasionally respond to this number.
I have carefully read the:
Using Your NI-488.2™
Software for DOS or
Windows 3 with
Windows 95/98
pdf file and followed all the instructions.
I have experienced these problems with 2 separate AT-GPIB cards on 2 different computers, 1 computer running windows 98 (2nd edition) the other windows 95.
I have completely uninstalled the drivers as described on your web page (How Do I Remove Windows 3_x GPIB Software from My Windows 98-95 System.htm) and reinstalled the drivers (Atwin 2.7.1) according to the above mentioned pdf file (no IRQ set on the card and configuration software, DMA set to 5, demand mode DMA on and off, no difference).
The installation went as follows:
* set the card jumpers to address: 0x02C0, no IRQ, DMA 5, DMA ACK 5, installed the card into the computer.
* installed the National Instruments NI-488.2 Software for Windows 3 for the AT-GPIB/TNT+, AT-GPIB/TNT(Plug and Play), EISA-GPIB, AT-GPIB/TNT and AT-GPIB. Version 2.7.1.
* set the software configuration parameters for the card (AT-GPIB, no IRQ, DMA 5), rebooted the computer.
* copied the gpib-32.dll and gpib-16.dll from the windows compatibility directory to the windows\system directory.
* linked in the gpib-32.obj in my C++ project.
Both the hardware and software diagnostic tests give correct results.
I realize these are very old card but any help would be appreciated.
Regards,
JW Kokkelink
R&D manager
Micro-Optics, Inc
Hastings Square Plaza
Schooleys Mountain road
Hackettstown, NJ 07840
tel: 908 850 6676
fax : 908 850 6344
