There's a difference between instrument drivers and protocol "drivers". Protocol "drivers" basically provide the means for an application to communicate over a specific type of hardware connection, like a serial port, GPIB, or ethernet. To talk to devices over the serial port you need VISA. This should have been installed when you installed LabVIEW. I don't know if the trial version includes it or not. You can check a number of ways:
- Through MAX (Measurement and Automation Explorer). If installed with LabVIEW you'll get an icon on the desktop. You can also access it from the Start menu (default is Start->Programs->National Instruments->Measurement and Automation). When you launch MAX expans the "My System" node and then "Software". You should see NI-VISA.
- Add/Remove Programs -> National Instruments Software. Click on "Change" and see if NI-VISA is in the list.
- See if VISA is in the Start menu (default is Start->Programs->National Instruments->VISA).
- Open the "Basic Serial Write and Read" example that ships with LabVIEW. You can open this by opening the Example Finder (Help->Find Examples), and then entering "serial" in the search tab. With this VI open the "VISA resource name" control should display at least "COM1" (your serial port) and "LPT1" (your parallel port).
Assuming that the trial version already has VISA, the "Basic Serial Write and Read" will allow you to communicate with your device. If you don't have VISA (which I doubt), you can install it by downloading it from here.
Specific devices may already have instrument drivers written, which are just pre-written VIs that send commands to instruments and parse their responses so you don't have to wade through the manuals to write the code yourself. To see if a pre-written driver exists for your specific instrument, head over to the NI Instrument Driver Network and do a search.
