Register programming for PCI-6713

[monarch]

We are required to implement the PCI-6713 Analog output card for Solaris x86. Give that no supported driver exists, I would assume that I need specific information on register level programming for this card. This information is not in the user manual. Additional information or alternative methods to its implementation in this environment would also be greatly appreciated.

I need only implement the analog output features of this card.

Thanks for your time.

Mike

[Anonymous]

In article <506500000008000000FB610000-1031838699000@exchange.ni.com>,
"monarch" wrote:

> We are required to implement the PCI-6713 Analog output card for Solaris
> x86. Give that no supported driver exists,

I don't have this specific card but I"m pretty sure you can use one of
the Comedi drivers from:

http://stm.lbl.gov/comedi/

See the link to 'Supported Hardware'. The PCI-6713 is definitely in
there. It uses the ni_pcimio.o loadable module. They give you all of
the source so it should be painless to port over to your Sun station.

I've used some of these drivers in LV for Linux. They work for me.

- Kevin

[monarch]

Thank you for your response.

I have the comedi code however my problem lies in attaching a driver to an actual device. The whole Auto-configuration process is mystifying. Once I get that done in Solaris x86 (Version 8), the actual implementation is relatively trivial.

Any ideas?

Mike

[Russell]

There is only certain hardware that have register-level programming information released. You can view our RLP resources page at http://www.ni.com/support/daq/reg_prog.htm. Unfortunatly, it doesn't seem that any 671x information is publicly available. It sounds like your best bet may be with the comedi driver.

Russell
Applications Engineer
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/support

[Anonymous]

In article <50650000000500000033AC0000-1031838699000@exchange.ni.com>,
"monarch" wrote:

> I have the comedi code however my problem lies in attaching a driver to
> an actual device. The whole Auto-configuration process is mystifying.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. When you say 'Auto-configuration'
are you talking about the '/usr/sbin/comedi_config' application? If this
is the case, look at line #125 of the INSTALL text file in the
comedi-0.7.x directory. It talks about Module Autoloading. I modified
my modules.conf file to autoload my das08 and das800 cards. Works fine.

Tell me if this it the problem and I may be able to help.

-Kevin

[monarch]

Sorry for the ambiguity. I am working on Solaris only. In Solaris there is an Auto-configuration process where the OS attaches drivers to the appropriate devices. This process seems pretty ad-hoc to me, and still has me guessing.

Also, you can't use the auto-configuration process if the device is not "self-identifying." I dont' even know how to tell if a device is, or isn't "self-identifying." If the device is not "self-identifying" you need a .conf file which a bunch of setting I don't yet understand either. . . .*sigh*.

Are the comedi drivers supposed to work under Solaris?
Have you done this under Solaris?

Mike

[monarch]

Is the comedi driver supposed to work under Solaris x86?

[Anonymous]

In article <50650000000500000094AC0000-1031838699000@exchange.ni.com>,
"monarch" wrote:

> Are the comedi drivers supposed to work under Solaris? Have you done
> this under Solaris?

Are you running LabVIEW on Solaris? Your previous posts never mention LV,
just Comedi. I know very little about Solaris and Sparc work stations but
I do know there are Linux distributions for the Sparc:
http://www.ultralinux.com
http://www.slackware.com/ports/sparc/

The reason why I say to go with a distro of Linux for your Sparc is
because I have no idea if the Comedi drivers will work with Solaris. That
question should be directed to their mailing list:
http://stm.lbl.gov/comedi/mailinglist.html

Have you tried to compile the
driver source yet and was it successful?

The only problem is that you may not have LV for Linux... I'm guessing
that you just started playing around with the Comedi drivers with the
hope of using them with LV for Solaris.

Well, I hope you get this running. Sounds interesting.

- Kevin

[monarch]

Thanks for everyone's help. I was able to get the driver working. . . just a matter of having all of the right numbers in the right places. Now that the driver attaches, I need to implement the various methods. Here is where the comedi driver comes in handy. Most of the methods/registers, and I/O can be pulled out of the comedi driver, so I think I'm good to go.

Mike

[monarch]

I see comments in the comedi driver that
"streaming output is not supported." You say that the driver works for you.

1. Can you (for example) generate a sine wave on an output channel?
2. Can you use all 8 channels?

The driver code seems pretty incomplete.

Could you please be more specific what you have working with this comedi driver?

Thanks.

Mike