Connecting to external Hardware with VISA and LabVIEW through a serial port

[CalTech]

Hello,
What I want to do is just use my serial port and labVIEW for the interfacing language and control external hardware. If I am correct I need to create a VISA. Do I need to worry about VXI or GPIB? Also I think if I am correct I can use MAX to set up a session but where can I get a good program that will just talk to a given com port, if possible without me having to wire something up to the VI, and if I do have to wire something what would I wire?

Thanks very much,

~CalTech

[Dennis_Knutson]

Want you will be doing is using the VISA API to communicate with your hardware over the serial port. You do not need to worry about GPIB or VXI - those are different communication buses and in any case you would also use VISA to talk to instruments over those buses. If you're lucky, an instrument driver already exists and you won't have to write any code. Go to the Instrument Driver Network and search the drivers that are available. On the same page are links to pages that explain what an instrument driver is and how you can write your own. Also, if you have a newer version of LabVIEW, you can use the Instrument I/O Assistant (on the Instrument I/O palette) to create a sequence that consists of any n
umber of read/write/parse steps.