Tek 4041

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Thu Jul 29 21:51:04 1999

Tony,

At 11:16 PM 7/29/99 +0100, you wrote:
>> , but
>> >doesn't the HP150 have an IEEE-488 port (aka GPIB, HPIB) as standard.
>>
>> Yes, it does but the 150 uses the port to connect to peripherals
>> operating under MS-DOS. It has no commands that will let you send or
>> recieve specific strings over the HP-IB.
>
>That's news to me (and I guess to HP). The HP150 Technical Reference
>Manual has a section entitled 'HPIB Interfacing' which describes how to
>use the HPIB port for non-disk devices.
>

   THAT's news to me! I've never heard of using a 150 as a HP-IB
controller and I have a large STACK of 150 documentation and none of it
even hints that you can what you're talking about. Can you make a copy of
that for me? S_at_#* and I've got a pile of 150s setting out in the rain
cause I had no use for them!



>There are some _firmware_ (not hardware - the HP150's hardware can do
>just about anything on the HPIB - it's based on a TMS 9914 controller).
>In particular, the HP150 expects to initiate every bus transaction, and
>therefore doesn't support SRQ, Trigger, Multiple controllers or
>transactions between other devices on the same bus. But for controlling
>simple instruments it should be fine.
>
>Basically you OPEN a device called HPIBDEV. Then use the MS-DOS IOCTRL
>call to send control blocks to the HPIB driver. The manual describes the
>format of said blocks and gives an example program in C to talk to a 9111
>graphics tablet.

  In C? Is there a C that will run on the 150? Most of the software has
to be tailored specificly for the 150 or else be VERY MS-DOS compatible
with no short cuts. I've heard of BASIC, Assembler and Pascal that will run
on the 150 but I haven't heard of a C compiler that would.

   Joe
Received on Thu Jul 29 1999 - 21:51:04 BST