Well, there was a guy here in Denver who made a great deal of money from the
Commodore community with his Commodore-HPIB==>Epson-printer interface. He
started a pretty large company from that one single device for the
Commodore. I'm not even sure that the original interface, unmodified from
the COMMODORE version, would talk to HPIB devices.
I'll have to investigate the process of writing control routines for the C
and Pascal versions I routinely use. If there's QBASIC-compatible BASIC
software out there that may be worth a look. HP did like BASIC back in the
'80's.
I once used the serial interface on my logic analyzer to help me with
producing a "clone" of a dongle for one of the many dongle-protected
sogtware bits I wanted to investigate. This provided a means to do that,
since the software under Windows (3.1x) was considerably more trouble to
patch than the dongle was to emulate. I'm likely to find that the GPIB is a
bit faster than the serial interface. That might open some doors.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 5:25 PM
Subject: Re: HPIB to HPIL adapter
> >
> > I was exposed to HPIL back in the '80's and, while there were some fancy
> > instruments, e.g. 6-digit DVM, I've not seen it used since then. In
fact,
>
> HPIL was one of the many things that HP did _right_ in the mid 1980s.
> It appears (to the user/programmer) as almost a serial version of HPIB,
> and it supports 31 peripherals (960? if you use extended HPIL addressing
> IIRC) on single loop.
>
> AFAIK it was only ever really used by HP (there were 3rd party products
> that used it, but all that I've seen were peripherals to HP calculators),
> although HP did document it completely and sold the custom (1LB3-0001
> IIRC) chip that acted as an interface between the loop and a normal
> microprocessor bus.
>
> I believe that neither these chips nor any HPIL devices are still in
> production, though.
>
> Since the higher levels of HPIL and HPIB are almost the same, the HP82169
> HPIB interface allows you to control HPIB instruments from an HPIL
> controller or vice versa with few problems.
>
> > the GPIB is something I've seen surprisingly little, except on equipment
>
> Well, almost all digitally-controlled test equipment supports it.
>
> As regards computers, just about anything HP would either have an GPIB
> port as standard or at least have one as an option. All 'classic' PERQs
have
> GPIB as standard as well. Commodore PETs (and P500s...) have a somewhat
> mangled varient of GPIB that works most of the time with standard GPIB
> peripherals (although the reverse is not always true -- there are PET
> peripherals that do not work on normal GPIB controllers). DEC made GPIB
> cards for the Unibus (IB11) and Q-bus (IBV11). And of course there are
> ISA cards for it. And _dozens_ of machines that I've missed...
>
> > The LabView is not irrelevant, but only because there are people willing
to
> > pay to have it used in their installations. I'm perfectly satisfied to
use
> > the GPIB command set as part of a program I write myself. I've found
that
> > approach quite satisfactory, and there's certainly a shorter learning
curve
> > than with some GUI-thingie that I can't manipulate comfortably because
> > someone else designed it.
>
> I must admit that from what I've seen of Labview, I don't like it. If I
> want an instrument front panel kind of interface then I'll reach over and
> turn the physical knob on the physical front of the instrument. If I want
> to automatically control the instrument then _I'd_ be happier writing a
> program in some suitable language to do it.
>
> >
> > Because I've had so little experience with the GPIB, and because I've
got no
> > doc's on the National Instruments GPIB card I have, I'm at the mercy of
> > those who may have and be willing to "share" whatever details and
drivers
> > they have. I'm open to any suggestions and your "spiritual guidance" is
> > always welcome.
>
> I wonder how hard it would be to figure out how to program the card
> directly? Does it use a standard GPIB controller chip (probably a TMS9914
> or an Intel 8291/8292 or an NEC 7210)? If so, get the data sheets on that
> chip and then figure out how the address decoder, etc, on the NI card
> works (ignore DMA if you can, for all some GPIB cards support it).
>
> Then it's just a matter of writing functions to program the chip
> appropriately to act as the system controller and to allow you to send
> bytes, receive bytes and send commands. None are particularly hard to
write.
>
> -tony
>
Received on Thu Apr 13 2000 - 11:17:45 BST