There was an PCI-GPIB from NI offered on TestEquipTrader on Yahoo a couple
of days ago.

-John

================

On 10/9/11 3:36 PM, Paul A. Cianciolo wrote:

I've been moving to USB and Ethernet.  That whole ISA/EISA/PCI bus thing
is such a pain.

Given USB/Ethernet, Prologix has nice GPIB interfaces.  NI and Agilent
also have them.  brand new, the latter cost more, but perhaps they show
up used at lower prices.

On 10/10/11 00:41, Jim Lux wrote:

USB can be a pain if you have several, how do you ensure they pop up
with the same identity? Serial port adapters have that issue. Not aware
that there is a general solution to it. For USB at least there is a scan
order to assist, and USB doesn't hurt as the ISA did.

Cheers,
Magnus

Jim,

I am open to all the suggestions.
Just looked at the Prologix  site,  The usb interface is interesting, also
the Ethernet device looks cool.
I have a wireless network here with about 10 devices on it.

Would I be able to monitor, say the 5370,b with TL running and maybe my
HP3586 Selective level meter from a wireless laptop
Using the proper software?    This sounds like an interesting way to go.

I have to read up on the prologix more.

Paul A. Cianciolo
W1VLF
http://www.rescueelectronics.com/
Our business computer network is  powered exclusively by solar and wind
power.
Converting Photons to Electrons for over 20 years

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of Jim Lux
Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2011 6:42 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Could someone please recommend GPIB card

On 10/9/11 3:36 PM, Paul A. Cianciolo wrote:

I've been moving to USB and Ethernet.  That whole ISA/EISA/PCI bus thing is
such a pain.

Given USB/Ethernet, Prologix has nice GPIB interfaces.  NI and Agilent also
have them.  brand new, the latter cost more, but perhaps they show up used
at lower prices.

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

About Windows -
If the USB adapters show as drive letters, Disk Management in Win 2K /XP / Vista
(ugh) / Win 7 can assign sticky drive letters to them.  (Right click on My
Computer, Select Manage, double click on disk management...)

But if they are USB HID (Human I/F Devices)
There is no drive association.  I have no HID expertise.

John K1AE

You can troll sci.engineering.design for users of the prologix usb and ethernet interfaces. However I think the best suggestion was to get the pci to pcmcia adadpter.

My recollection is cardbus is 32bits and pcmcia is 16bits.  My it shouldn't be an issue unless you try to run DOS. The only reason I mention this is I can't run some serial cards via my cardbus slot on my notebook due to the lack of a driver.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Paul A. Cianciolo" paulc@snet.net
Sender: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2011 18:59:40
To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'time-nuts@febo.com
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Could someone please recommend GPIB card

Jim,

I am open to all the suggestions.
Just looked at the Prologix  site,  The usb interface is interesting, also
the Ethernet device looks cool.
I have a wireless network here with about 10 devices on it.

Would I be able to monitor, say the 5370,b with TL running and maybe my
HP3586 Selective level meter from a wireless laptop
Using the proper software?    This sounds like an interesting way to go.

I have to read up on the prologix more.

Paul A. Cianciolo
W1VLF
http://www.rescueelectronics.com/
Our business computer network is  powered exclusively by solar and wind
power.
Converting Photons to Electrons for over 20 years

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of Jim Lux
Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2011 6:42 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Could someone please recommend GPIB card

On 10/9/11 3:36 PM, Paul A. Cianciolo wrote:

I've been moving to USB and Ethernet.  That whole ISA/EISA/PCI bus thing is
such a pain.

Given USB/Ethernet, Prologix has nice GPIB interfaces.  NI and Agilent also
have them.  brand new, the latter cost more, but perhaps they show up used
at lower prices.

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

The PCI and USB HPib interfaces I've seen are terribly expensive.
Wpuld it be possible to fake an interface with a parallel port and bit
banging?
Possibly an Arduino?

On 10/09/2011 06:54 PM, lists@lazygranch.com wrote:

--
Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX N2469R    caf@omen.com  www.omen.com
Developer of Industrial ZMODEM(Tm) for Embedded Applications
Omen Technology Inc      "The High Reliability Software"
10255 NW Old Cornelius Pass Portland OR 97231  503-614-0430

On 10/9/11 7:11 PM, Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX N2469R wrote:

Sure... but surplus NI cards turn up pretty cheap, and the Prologix and
equivalent widgets aren't all that expensive.  By the time you take an
Arduino and put it in a box with a power supply, etc  (And buy that
darned connector), I'll bet you're pretty close to the $150 cost of a
Prologix USB box.  And, then you still have to do the programming, which
is non-trivial if you want to support the entire protocol (I did part of
a IEEE-488 interface with a Z80 some decades ago.. It's 1 Mbyte/sec and
you really do need to support all the handshaking properly.)  I imagine
you could probably do a fairly decent job with a FPGA that has a USB
interface.  But then, you're still in the $50-100 board range and still
needing the connector, power supply, and box.

There are, of course, ISA cards around for $20-30, but finding drivers,
etc is going to be a chore (of course, that DOS machine with ISA bus
you're running it in probably does have the needed 5.25" disk drive for
the driver)

I guess it depends on whether you want so spend your time building GPIB
interfaces or doing whatever you need the GPIB interface for.

Yes, I recommend switching to a networked GPIB interface. I have long
waited to acquire a used E5810A and at last I succeeded. Of course it
was not so cheap (380$) but very versatile to use. At work I use an
Agilent 82357B, highly recommended. Frequently pops up on eBay, not
cheap but you can find the IOAgilentSuite (free) library (to write in
MicrosoftC/BorlandC your code) directly on the Agilent website.

On 10/10/11, Paul A. Cianciolo paulc@snet.net wrote:

Though I think this thread may be wrapping up.
I have run into many of the same issues.
The old isa cards are cheap at hamfests $5 most folks have no clue any
longer as to what they are.
I have never actually seen a pci card at a swap.

So at the moment I have both an isa card and NI network box in a mother
board running Win 98. All of it kind of nuts and messy. Also picked up a
circa 2002 NI lab. To be honest until now I really did not have a real use
for it.
?????? I don't suppose timelab would run on win 98??

Anyhow many of these things have no drivers or support for more modern OS's.
I do fortunately have numbers of rs232 to gpib boxes and actually want to
try that on the 5370 with time lab.

So as far as getting the prologix I suspect thats a wise approach actually.
If your goal is to simply "Get it done".
Regards
Paul.

On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 10:02 AM, Azelio Boriani
azelio.boriani@screen.itwrote:

Hi

64 bit Windows 7 is the most restrictive OS I have seen so far in terms of drivers. 32 bit is a bit more forgiving. I would guess that 32 bit Windows will be a bit of a dinosaur three to five years from now. Just as you are still running Win 98, that does not mean other versions will be dead and gone. Only that a pretty cheap PC down at the big box store of your choice likely will not have a 32 bit OS on it. I think the restrictions in 64 bit Win 7 are the ones you need to worry about for a "compatible with everything" long term purchase.

That said, The newer NI PCI cards do have drivers. The same is true of the current production NI cards (all flavors). I'd bet it's true of the current production Prologix. Strictly speaking, the serial to GPIB boxes don't need drivers as much as they need software adapted to them. The same is true of the ethernet to GPIB boxes. That software may be a bear to write, but it's still easier than writing a driver that Windows will accept as valid.

Bob

On Oct 10, 2011, at 10:47 AM, paul swed wrote:

Talking of 82357B USB-GPIB adapter - does anyone have any experience of the Chinese clones, for example: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/180734845086

Thanks
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On Behalf Of Azelio Boriani
Sent: 10 October 2011 15:03
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Could someone please recommend GPIB card

Yes, I recommend switching to a networked GPIB interface. I have long waited to acquire a used E5810A and at last I succeeded. Of course it was not so cheap (380$) but very versatile to use. At work I use an Agilent 82357B, highly recommended. Frequently pops up on eBay, not cheap but you can find the IOAgilentSuite (free) library (to write in MicrosoftC/BorlandC your code) directly on the Agilent website.

On 10/10/11, Paul A. Cianciolo paulc@snet.net wrote:

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

If those are really clones maybe they are useful. I'm planning to buy
a real 82357B in the future and actually I'm following every interface
that the eBay saved search flags. One day or the other maybe my turn.
Eight months I waited to acquire an E5810A for 380$ instead of 750$. I
love the "command line" way and actually I can write various data
acquisition routines virtually on-the-fly (kinda live-coding) to get
data from (for example) the Fluke PM6681, from the M12M by the serial
port, and have the time interval corrected by the negative sawtooth. I
used a LeCroy 9362 and a 53132A too to gather time differences in the
past. It is very easy with the old Borland C 5 and the static linking
library provided free by Agilent to write down simple code to acquire
from varius sources (GPIB, serial port and others).

On 10/10/11, David C. Partridge david.partridge@perdrix.co.uk wrote:

That is certainly possibly, since it is precisely what I use. It's an old printer cable where I adjusted the wiring to the GPIB connector. For the rest it's all done with parport bitbanging under linux using /dev/port. I vaguely recall that I had all the GPIB connectors except for 1, which was no problem for my needs.
 

Were I to DIY it again now, I would indeed look into using an arduino + ethernet shield for the task. Or maybe just buy it on ebay if it's cheap enough. Or maybe a DIY pcb with an ENC424J600 + fpga/microcontroller, so it all fits nicely into the connector.

Then again, something like this should be commodity enough not to have to waste too much DIY time on it.

regards,
Fred

Chuck Forsberg wrote:

Take care that you need the correct line drivers. Before the 82357B,
the E5810A I used an Atmel AT89C55 to develop a GPIB-serial adapter
but only one GPIB device I was able to drive...

On 10/10/11, Tijd Dingen tijddingen@yahoo.com wrote:

Indeed. I use it with only one single gpib slave device attached. Also you may or may not have to fiddle with the parport settings. Either by writing to the superio registers, or by changing settings in the bios.

From: Azelio Boriani azelio.boriani@screen.it
To: Tijd Dingen tijddingen@yahoo.com; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Could someone please recommend GPIB card

Take care that you need the correct line drivers. Before the 82357B,
the E5810A I used an Atmel AT89C55 to develop a GPIB-serial adapter
but only one GPIB device I was able to drive...

On 10/10/11, Tijd Dingen tijddingen@yahoo.com wrote:

On 10/10/11 8:10 AM, Bob Camp wrote:

As consumer PCs change from a "computer" to a "media and interaction
device" the lockdown will continue.

MUCH easier, no bear, no raccoon, not even a dog to write.

And as far as the Prologix Ethernet/GPIB widgets go, the protocol is
published, simple, etc. There's python examples out there for all manner
of useful stuff.  For the vast majority of GPIB control/read back stuff,
I would expect it to work forever.  I wish my 1553 boxes had such a
simple interface.

You just use BSD sockets and go for it.

cmd = "*RST"
sock.send(cmd + "\n")
time.sleep(1.0)
CheckError()

pretty darn simple, eh?

def CheckError():

sock.send("SYST:ERR?\n")
sock.send("++read eoi\n")

s = None
try:
s = sock.recv(100)
except socket.timeout:
s = ""

print s