GPIB errors with Pickeringinterfaces 10-921 and LW5.1/Win98

[Johannes Eble]

Hello,

We have an application using the Pickering 10-921 Interface and the
64x4 Matrix module. It has been working for years with LabView 4.01
and Windows3.11.
Now I have to extend the application and run it with LabView 5.1 and
Windows98. However, the Pickering 10-921 doesn't work, i.e. I get
errors when I send a RESET command and MCLOSE commands with the
LabView GPIB Write.vi (and also with the LabView Explorer). Note that
*exactly* the same method worked in LW4.01/Win3.11.
I have read at Piceringinterfaces web site that LabView drivers are
supported, but I couldn't find them. (I thought that LabView GPIB
drivers wouldn't be necessary, except for the standard LabView GPIB
driver that is installated with LabV
iew.)


Any ideas?



Regards


Johannes

[Dennis_Knutson]

The GPIB functions in LabVIEW only work with NI hardware. They call functions in NI-GPIB. I'm not sure how the card worked with LabVIEW unless Pickering's board was a clone of NI's and was designed to work with the version of NI-GPIB that shipped with 4.0.1. Your best bet is to contact Pickering and see if this old board is compatible with the newer versions of NI-GPIB or if they have their own driver. If they have their own driver, you will have to make calls to that and not with the built in LabVIEW GPIB functions. The other possibility is that the might have a VISA driver for their card and in that case, you would use the LabVIEW VISA functions instead of the GPIB ones.

[Johannes Eble]

Hi Dennis,

thanks for your answer.

I haven't done much with the GPIB before. I thought that the GPIB
would be controlled by the LabView GPIB driver and all GPIB devices
could just use the GPIB VIs (GPIB read/write and so on). Actually, we
use 4 other GPIB devices (other than the Pickering) in this project,
and all other devices *seem* to work with Windows 98 /LV5.1 without
modification.

Anyway, I have got the 'drivers' from one guy from Pickering in the
meantime and all of them are VIs, no dll. I will try them as soon as
possible, but I am out of lab at the moment. Some of the VIs are
rather complex, but they are designed to work for GPIB and for RS232.
But they don't seem to use lowlevel GPIB drivers other than the
standard read/write VIs. Well, ma
ybe it was a timing problem or
because GPIB is case-sensitive in Windows 98 (reset instead of RESET).


Regards

Johannes