You can also use the same openVISA layer with scilab, python, octave, c++, ...
essentially all other open source languages and packages.  So things are
pretty nice for GPIB users in open source land... much nicer than in 'doze
land.  If only because you don't have to ask anyone's permission to make
changes that make things work better for your needs.

For those that think python is impossible to use, here is a snippet that
will read from your keithley voltmeter:

import visa
keithley = visa.instrument("GPIB::12")
print keithley.ask("*IDN?")

There are many dozens of instruments that have support already in the library,
and adding additional instruments is pretty trivial.

Plotting is as simple as using the python graph function.

Here is another package called pyVlab, which is a python based clone of
Labview:

http://pyvlab.sourceforge.net/

I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would set up their tent
in NI labview land.

-Chuck Harris

Ivan Cousins wrote:

"I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would set up their tent
in NI labview land."

Some people like the comfort it gives to pay for something. The perception that if anything goes wrong, someone will be there to help you. What they don't realize is that most commercial software vendors are resorting to user forums to help users with problem, just like to free software folks have done for ages.

I had a need to learn Matlab quickly to help my son with an assignment (he is an EE student). We were able to share his login to the free on-line tool Matlab provides to universities (a Citrix client, a little cumbersome and slow, but it did work, mostly), but only one of us could be logged at a time. Since he is several hundred miles from me, that was not convenient. So I checked the Matlab web site for a license or a free trial. They have severe restrictions to their free trial, and they have to approve you first. For about $2,000, you can buy a single user license, what a deal! Keep in mind this is for software that is not even aware that Windows has been supporting long file names since Windows 95, only 15 years ago.

So I downloaded and installed Octave, the free Matlab clone on my machine. It ran all the Matlab scripts we threw at it without a flinch. All the error messages (when present) were the same between Octave and Matlab. Octave wants to be a faithful Matlab clone, so they have the same restrictions on long file names by the way, which I found amusing. I can tolerate that from free software, it is inexcusable for expensive commercial software.

I don't understand why the university would force the students to use Matlab (even though they provide a free login, this login expires when the class is over) when quality free tools like Octave are available.

By the way, I don't think Octave will replace Spice any time soon, but it looks like a very useful tool. That was an interesting exercise for me :)

Didier KO4BB

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Harris cfharris@erols.com
Sender: volt-nuts-bounces@febo.com
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2010 10:34:54
To: Discussion of precise voltage measurementvolt-nuts@febo.com
Reply-To: Discussion of precise voltage measurement volt-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [volt-nuts] do you like Labview in your labs?

You can also use the same openVISA layer with scilab, python, octave, c++, ...
essentially all other open source languages and packages.  So things are
pretty nice for GPIB users in open source land... much nicer than in 'doze
land.  If only because you don't have to ask anyone's permission to make
changes that make things work better for your needs.

For those that think python is impossible to use, here is a snippet that
will read from your keithley voltmeter:

import visa
keithley = visa.instrument("GPIB::12")
print keithley.ask("*IDN?")

There are many dozens of instruments that have support already in the library,
and adding additional instruments is pretty trivial.

Plotting is as simple as using the python graph function.

Here is another package called pyVlab, which is a python based clone of
Labview:

http://pyvlab.sourceforge.net/

I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would set up their tent
in NI labview land.

-Chuck Harris

Ivan Cousins wrote:

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

To my way of seeing things: Opensource software is like a philanthropist
who is throwing $100 bills to the wind for anyone who wants them, and the
masses are stomping the bills into the ground because they can't believe
that anyone would give away anything of value.

The famous violinist Joshua Bell, on a dare from Washington Post humorist
Gene Wiengarten, stood at the entrance to a busy Metro (subway) station, and
played his heart out for a whole day.  Quality playing, and quality pieces
of music that concert goers would have payed hundreds of dollars to see at
venues all around the world... And only 3 people stopped to listen.  The
rest just hustled through ignoring the busker.

Octave, Scilab, Python, Perl, GCC, G77, Openoffice.org, Mozilla, Linux, BSD,
Cinelerra, Audacity, Rosegarden, K3B, Gimp, Cups,... I could go on for hours...
Are all world class software that meets, or exceeds, anything available
commercially and are free.

And yet, like the philanthropist tossing $100 bills, or Joshua Bell playing
his heart out in a subway station, they are largely ignored by the masses.

Sad.

-Chuck Harris

shalimr9@gmail.com wrote:

In message 4CFCFA90.4080601@erols.com, Chuck Harris writes:

his heart out in a subway station, they are largely ignored by the masses.

Well ... maybe.

My attitude has always been that I was happy to have only 1% market share,
provided they were the smartest 1% of the market.

That is not just a flippant comment, it is a well thought out policy.

I'm pretty sure that Joshua would equally have hated to see his
concerts filed with all the people who passed him by in the subway,
and much prefers to see them filled with the 1% who really cares
about what he lives for.

A lot of open source software is written "Con Amore" and the last thing
you want to get out of spending you spare time on something you love,
is to be pestered by people who don't "get it".

In a purely utilitarian or economic sense you are right, it is sad, the
same way any other waste of resources is sad, but reality is somewhat
more complicated than that.

Poul-Henning

--
Poul-Henning Kamp      | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer      | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

In answer to the original question of this thread: No, I don't like to use LabView.

LabView is a very polarizing application.  You either love it or hate it.  I've always felt betrayed by NI portraying it as an easy to use graphical programming system that should be easy for people who aren't necessarily programmers.  In reality it's just a very clumsy and obtuse graphical overlay for a hierarchical programming structure.  You still need be proficient in C, or a C-like language to understand it.  In addition to that it's a huge resource hog.  The installed size is absolutely enormous.  Add to that their deviations from the IEEE 488 standard that stop it from working with generic interfaces and you really have something to loathe.

For a lot of simple data collection tasks I long for the days of HP Instrument BASIC or GW BASIC.  What I don't long for is all of the hardware setup issues with manual card setup and drivers.

Both LabView and Matlab are the 800 pound gorillas in the market.  Everybody knows them, or has at least heard of them, partly due to their penetration in the educational institutions.  It's a vicious cycle that works to their advantage.  You bring up a generation of students on your product and they will want to use it in their working life.  When it comes time to hire more people the former student, now experienced engineer, looks for more people who know the system they are familiar with.  Once that cycle is established it's hard to break.

I completely agree about the comfort factor.  Many companies, especially larger ones, seem to feel better about having something that they can pay for and get "support" rather than relying on a group of users.  I think that there is a fear of Opensource from the standpoint that it's less controlled than a purchased product and it might disappear or change in a negative way without warning.  Buying a package or product is bu no means a guarantee of stability, either, but companies just seem to be comfortable with the old way of doing things.  I also wonder if there is a perception that Opensource projects are inferior to pay solutions.  Whether it's right or wrong I could see how people further up the management chain could be suspicious of the quality of something that they don't pay for.

I, for one, am very glad to see  Opensource flourish.  I'm grateful for people who have the time and the passion to support something they believe in or see a need for

-John

My views and comments are not to be associated with my employer

-----Original Message-----
From: volt-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:volt-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On Behalf Of shalimr9@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 8:34 AM
To: Discussion of precise voltage measurement
Subject: Re: [volt-nuts] do you like Labview in your labs?

"I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would set up their tent
in NI labview land."

Some people like the comfort it gives to pay for something. The perception that if anything goes wrong, someone will be there to help you. What they don't realize is that most commercial software vendors are resorting to user forums to help users with problem, just like to free software folks have done for ages.

I had a need to learn Matlab quickly to help my son with an assignment (he is an EE student). We were able to share his login to the free on-line tool Matlab provides to universities (a Citrix client, a little cumbersome and slow, but it did work, mostly), but only one of us could be logged at a time. Since he is several hundred miles from me, that was not convenient. So I checked the Matlab web site for a license or a free trial. They have severe restrictions to their free trial, and they have to approve you first. For about $2,000, you can buy a single user license, what a deal! Keep in mind this is for software that is not even aware that Windows has been supporting long file names since Windows 95, only 15 years ago.

So I downloaded and installed Octave, the free Matlab clone on my machine. It ran all the Matlab scripts we threw at it without a flinch. All the error messages (when present) were the same between Octave and Matlab. Octave wants to be a faithful Matlab clone, so they have the same restrictions on long file names by the way, which I found amusing. I can tolerate that from free software, it is inexcusable for expensive commercial software.

I don't understand why the university would force the students to use Matlab (even though they provide a free login, this login expires when the class is over) when quality free tools like Octave are available.

By the way, I don't think Octave will replace Spice any time soon, but it looks like a very useful tool. That was an interesting exercise for me :)

Didier KO4BB

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Harris cfharris@erols.com
Sender: volt-nuts-bounces@febo.com
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2010 10:34:54
To: Discussion of precise voltage measurementvolt-nuts@febo.com
Reply-To: Discussion of precise voltage measurement volt-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [volt-nuts] do you like Labview in your labs?

You can also use the same openVISA layer with scilab, python, octave, c++, ...
essentially all other open source languages and packages.  So things are
pretty nice for GPIB users in open source land... much nicer than in 'doze
land.  If only because you don't have to ask anyone's permission to make
changes that make things work better for your needs.

For those that think python is impossible to use, here is a snippet that
will read from your keithley voltmeter:

import visa
keithley = visa.instrument("GPIB::12")
print keithley.ask("*IDN?")

There are many dozens of instruments that have support already in the library,
and adding additional instruments is pretty trivial.

Plotting is as simple as using the python graph function.

Here is another package called pyVlab, which is a python based clone of
Labview:

http://pyvlab.sourceforge.net/

I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would set up their tent
in NI labview land.

-Chuck Harris

Ivan Cousins wrote:

Why use LabVIEW?

Because it is largely a standard and a lot of bugs have been found. Also,
programmers don't screw with it, unbenownst of all the users.

A parable:

Many years ago, I was using a DG RDOS system. I had several large HDs (for
the day). A guy at Harvard, with a PhD and more, wrote a "backup" utility
that would back up a HD to mag tape. A single tape would hold a couple of
dozen disks, and cost about $10 vs. another HD platter at >$200.

I used it, but it had a bug, and predictably, I eventually had a system
crash. NP, I thought.

WRONG!

It turns out, the "backup" utility backed up ONLY DP0....  NOT THE OTHER
DRIVES.

That's a lesson I've never forgotten. It cost me near a year to recover.

Sorry, but I am simply not interested in home brew SW, no matter who
writes it. I do not trust any individual programmers for anything
important.

FWIW,

-John

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

Hi Poul,

I was careful to only include packages that were developed in
a professional manner.  Each is well supported... better than
anything I have ever gotten out of commercial software.  Even
Cinelerra, which at its root is a very Con Amore type of program,
there is a group of users dedicated to making it accessible and
bug free for "the rest of us".

Joshua was rather upset after he finished his dare.  It caused
him to rethink his position in the world.  He did not like going
from darling of the champagne and caviar set to being ignored
by people that would have paid to attend his concerts.  The
metro station they chose was heavily utilized by folks that
would (and have) attend his concerts.. as was verified by "exit
polls".

-Chuck Harris

Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

In message 50855.12.6.201.2.1291650579.squirrel@popaccts.quikus.com, "J. Fors
ter" writes:

Are you saying that you never tested that your backups could be restored ?

Sorry, but this is why I only want the top 1 % of the users...

--
Poul-Henning Kamp      | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer      | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Disk platters were very expensive. I checked the tapes were readable, but
not the files on them. A new car could be bought for about the price of 5
platters.

-John

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

In message 51365.12.6.201.2.1291651405.squirrel@popaccts.quikus.com, "J. Fors
ter" writes:

Well, that's never met my bar for QA on backups.

--
Poul-Henning Kamp      | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer      | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Back before PCs I was writing doctors office software. The system had one fixed
and one removable drive plus a 8" floppy drive. I wrote some software to backup
the removable disk on the floppies as the fixed drive had too much data to do a
two step backup. Several years later after I was at a new job and my old
employer wanted me to write a restore program as the fixed disk crashed. Luck
was with me and the restore worked. I would not have risked it otherwise, so the
restore program was not "needed" till that point. Hardware was more expensive
then and good backup systems did not exist at a price the market would bear. Now
we have so many ways to backup, but hardware is also more reliable that few
bother to backup a contact list on their cell phone. Insurance is just like
anything else the price must be close to or exceed the value expected to
receive. Can the cost of a good backup system exceed the value sure.

Stanley 

----- Original Message ----
From: J. Forster jfor@quik.com
To: Poul-Henning Kamp phk@phk.freebsd.dk
Cc: Discussion of precise voltage measurement volt-nuts@febo.com
Sent: Mon, December 6, 2010 10:03:25 AM
Subject: Re: [volt-nuts] do you like Labview in your labs?

Disk platters were very expensive. I checked the tapes were readable, but
not the files on them. A new car could be bought for about the price of 5
platters.

-John

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

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

It depends on how much money you have and if you want to eat or not.

-John

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

In message 55428.12.6.201.2.1291655181.squirrel@popaccts.quikus.com, "J. Fors
ter" writes:

No, it depends how much you value your data.

Poul-Henning

--
Poul-Henning Kamp      | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer      | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

A single 2.5 MB platter was groceries for 3+ months. A Diablo 31 was the
price of 2-3 cars. A 4K core memory board was about the same as a disk
drive.

-John

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

In message 52731.12.6.201.2.1291655614.squirrel@popaccts.quikus.com, "J. Fors
ter" writes:

I know.

I was there too.

But it still only depends how much you value your data.

We went on excursions to vendors machine-room to test restores.

--
Poul-Henning Kamp      | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer      | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

I had no way of checking restores.

-John

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

In message 59300.12.6.201.2.1291656020.squirrel@popaccts.quikus.com, "J. Fors
ter" writes:

I guess you mean: "Checking the restores would have been to expensive
relative to the value of the data."  Good sysadmin'in means the
CEO gets to make that decision.

Anyway, I really don't see that as a valid reason to curse all
software not written by a $MEGACORP...

Poul-Henning

--
Poul-Henning Kamp      | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer      | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Look, if you were NASA, you could afford to test every nut, bolt, washer,
or whatever.  If you are a small, poor operation you just cannot. That is
reality. You sometimes have to do what you have to do. Sometimes you do
without.

In the US there is a freedom to succeed, but also a freedom to fail. They
go hand in hand. Whatever the outcome, you are essentially on your own.

I use older versions of widely used commercial SW because it has been
pretty much debugged. If something really is crap, it will not survive the
marketplace. Vista, for example.

That's what I do.You do as you please.

FWIW,

-John

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

J. Forster wrote:

If you stick with a stable version of an opensource software product, and
don't upgrade it, programmers won't "screw with it".  On the other hand, if
you upgrade any software, open source, or not, programmers will have screwed
with it.  That's why it is called an upgrade.

So, you discovered the problem with using an incompetent programmer.  They
exist.  Any competent programmer would have tested the utility to make sure
that you could backup and restore everything the utility was supposed to
backup and restore.

Most of the opensource projects are built by teams.  Virtually every project
that I mentioned earlier were written by corporate teams.  Openoffice.org is by
Sun. Mozilla, by Netscape.  SELinux, by NSA. Octave, by the University of
Texas, and funded by DEC, SUN, IBM, ..., OpenSolaris is by Sun.  Python is
by the Python Software Foundation (A non-profit corporation).  The ubiquitous
scripting language PERL was written by the genius Larry Wall.

Further, if you used any of the earlier versions of windows (95,98,XP), the
IP layer, and PPP code were lifted verbatim from BSD unix.  IE was based on
the open source mosaic project.

I can't think of a single microprocessor/controller manufacturer in the last
15 years that didn't first do the porting work for their new machine to the
opensource GCC compiler.

You are really doing yourself a disservice letting the experiences you had
with one incompetent programmer keep you from enjoying the goodies offered
by the opensource software movement.  If you stay with the stable releases
of Debian, or Ubuntu, or Mint linux, I dare say you will never find a bug.

-Chuck Harris

That's why I said "older version". I generally go fr the last Rev before a
major upgrade. Never a new release.

Not in this case. The Harvard lab only had 1 disk drive, not several.

So what? You like UNIX. I don't.

But MS put it together, along with Word, Excel, Access and it all works
well. No muss, no fuss. I used to use Netscape, until it would no longer
work for eBay. I see ZERO advantage to screwing around with myriads of
programs, when all I need is a very few basic tools.

So what? Just because a company uses a CNC machine to make a mold for
something, I just need what comes out of the mold.

offered by the opensource software movement.

And by not moving my various Groups to Facebook also, so I'm told. Not
going to happen.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The tools on my desktop are just about
every one that I need. They are tools, not ends in themselves.

I've never found a bug in any of the commercial SW I use, actually. There
are a few crocks, but no bugs.

-John

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

Well J Forester,

I can see that Bill Gates has convinced you those FLAWS are design features.

However, it never hurts to spend some time investigating some of the Opensource.
Who knows there may actually be a "gem" in there, even within the confines of
your set of rules.

Bill....WB6BNQ

"J. Forster" wrote:

Nothing of the sort. Bill Gates could not possibly convince me that
something that does not work is OK. MS SW works for me.

I've yet to see flaws in the MS or really any other commercial apps. I can
(and still do) run 20+ year old DOS stuff. 10 year old Office stuff still
works fine and has far more features than I'll ever need.

I have seen SW completely cease to work when an OS on a Mac was changed
from N to (N+1).

YMMV,

-John

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

Thanks for a lively discourse on the thread I started ;)

This is what I wished to hear to consider continuing to write my own
or using a specific platform.

I currently write in whatever I can quickly get the job done, not
projecting long term maintainability; but its a trade off between
quick short term gain now or learning a platform because of its
reputation, a reputation I have to take on faith.

Some comments on the thread:

Open source versus commercial: why pick?  Use what works.

Joshua Bell: playing in the subway is the wrong place in most places,
particularly rush hour.  Folks are rushing getting from a to B.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

Chuck, on the side, did your issues with Prologix GPIB adapter
resolve using Linux?

At 02:30 PM 12/6/2010, Chuck Harris wrote:
You are really doing yourself a disservice letting the experiences you had

Thanks for these! I can certainly experiment with it without fear of
running out of 30 days!

At 10:34 AM 12/4/2010, Chuck Harris wrote:

Marvin E. Gozum wrote:

Marvin,

The Prologix GPIB adapter works very nicely on Linux.  I use it
primarily with Python, where it is trivial to write data collection,
graphing, and analysis routines.

The only problem I ever had was with my HP3478A DVM.  For whatever
reason, it will not work as the only device on the bus with my old
V4.6 adapter, with V5.0 firmware.  If there was another device on
the bus, it was fine. Abdul is sending me the latest version, and
I will see if that makes a difference.

My suspicion is that my HP3478A DVM has a problem with its on chip
pull up resistors, and the old Prologix adapter cannot source enough
current to make it work.  Adding a second powered on device sources
enough additional current to mask the problem.

Remember, the old adapter was never intended to be a fully drive
compliant controller.  It was intended to drive one or two devices.
I have run it with 6 or 7 devices, and as long as all are turned on,
it does just fine.

For those that want a complete example of how to drive the Prologix using
Python, here goes!

#! /usr/bin/env python

7854.py - try out some gpib data collection using the Prologix gpib-usb controller

import os
import termios
import serial
import time

def gpib_init() :
ser.write("++mode 1\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write("++ifc\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write("++auto 0\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write("++eoi 0\r")
time.sleep(0.1)

def gpib_read(addr):
ser.write("++addr " + str(addr) + "\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write("++read eoi\r")
return ser.readline()

def gpib_write(addr,gpibstr):
ser.write("++addr " + str(addr) + "\r")
time.sleep(0.1)
ser.write(gpibstr + "\r")

test program...

ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyUSB0',rtscts=0,timeout=1)

ser.write("++ver\r")
print ser.readline()

gpib_init()

gpib_write(10,"ID?\r")
print "ID= " + gpib_read(10) + "\r"

gpib_write(10,"VMDR\r")
gpib_write(10,"HMDB\r")

gpib_write(10,"STORED\r")

gpib_write(10,"1 0 2 4 >P/W AVG10\r")
gpib_read(10)

gpib_write(10,"SENDX\r")
time.sleep(4)

print "X=" + gpib_read(10) + "\r"
print "X=" + gpib_read(10) + "\r"

Modify it to your hearts content.

-Chuck Harris

OBTW, Prologix is a great company, I cannot recommend them enough!

John wrote:

True enough, I much prefer older versions of the Office apps.  That
was true even before the hateful "ribbon" interface.  BUT.  The
current versions of the Office apps won't open old files anymore, so
if you send what you create to someone with the current version,
you're SOL.  I have thousands of old Word files that I can't open,
except in a text editor.  I have an old version of Word, but MS
doesn't seem to allow one to have both versions installed.

(If someone knows of a good solution to this, I'm all ears.  And no,
the Open Office word mangler won't open them, either.)

Best regards,

Charles

I think MS has a format translation site. They certainly do for Excel. And
youi can write older Office files in Office 2007, I believe.

FWIW,

-John

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

Chuck wrote:

It was 43 minutes during a morning rush hour:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

At the risk of getting even further off topic, I'll amplify briefly
on Marvin's response to this.  The answer lies in the psychology of
solitude in crowds, which is demonstrated nowhere better than among
mass transit commuters during rush hour.  The commuters weren't "just
ignoring" Bell, in the sense of not noticing him -- which is how the
Post interpreted it.  Rather, regardless of how nice, or beautiful,
or worthwhile his playing was, he was, in the commuters' view,
intruding into their psychological space and assaulting them -- no
different from the guy who accosts passersby with construction pail
percussion, or sermons delivered on a crowded subway platform.  The
commuters noticed him, alright, and they were doing the most polite
thing they knew to do when faced with the unwanted intrusion --
studiously ignoring it.

More than a few commuters probably considered a somewhat less polite
response -- pulling the violin out of his hands and stomping it into
little pieces -- and I'll wager that at least a third of those
present would have cheered and clapped if that had happened (perhaps
only until they learned it had been a Strad).  Time and place....

Best regards,

Charles

Charles,

You make a good point. People are busy with their own stuff. I would have
walked right by the guy too. I always got annoyed with panhandlers. Even
remarkable things like in this YouTube link get old very quickly, IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp_RHnQ-jgU

FWIW,

-John

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

Openoffice.org is free, and will open all of the older versions
of word files.

-Chuck Harris

Charles P. Steinmetz wrote:

Chuck wrote:

Not so.  At least, my copy won't (see the last paragraph of my
previous message, below).  Or rather, it will open at least some of
them, but in unformatted text mode, not with their Word formatting --
much like opening them in a text editor.  Useless for old article
manuscripts, for example, which have lots of formatting, paragraph
and text styles, formulas with symbols, headers and footers, multiple
sections, etc., etc.

Best regards,

Charles

That's the locally famous former Wanamaker organ and store, now
Macys.  It works because folks are there to lollygag and shop, open
to suggestion, and its a known location for live classical organ
music for over a century.

If you are open to something, your sense of value will strike as soon
as something of value fell on your lap, software included.

I have strongest doubts on spontaneity just as the Bell subway
example was already biased for being suboptimal; 650 choir members
meeting in a lobby on Saturday can't be there to just shop; Macys
exists in so many more accessible suburbs; Philadelphia is notorious
for parking issues.  The video quality is too good compared to
"spontaneous" ones via cellphone video, to suggest that was planned
from the start; aka, marketing.  5,000,000 views is ~ a number
watching wrestling on TV and running a paid spot for Macys.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/nielsens-charts.htm

I think something that is less intellectual will stop a crowd: If
Starbucks set up a booth with free food, coffee, during morning rush
hour, will almost certainly create a stir than Mr. Bell.

Likewise in software, for users, neither open source or closed source
matters, what matters is it works and its easier to maintain over
time, if needed.

At 11:28 PM 12/6/2010, J. Forster wrote:

If Word or Open office won't work then try Window's built in Wordpad,
or opensource AbiWord, they all have a realm of converters.

At 02:08 AM 12/7/2010, Charles P. Steinmetz wrote:

Sincerely,

Marv Gozum
Philadelphia, PA

Hi Chuck,

Thanks for the clarification.  Since the 3478A is a popular DVM in
the secondary market, this is good to know and for the archives of
volt-nuts to log your Prologix experience; I see the initial
struggles over at time-nuts archive.

Thanks for the Python code! I like its look, but the simplicity of
device interfacing begs the question, why Python over competitors,
not just Labview, why not C or Pascal or Basic etc., for writing
support code for instruments?

Doesn't seem like the fastest out there and these benchmarks do not
measure code size either.

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/which-programming-languages-are-fastest.php

I don't know the answer.  Right now, I just use what I have.

But it seems overall being aware or knowing the commands of GPIB and
Prologix and establishing a connection to these devices through a
minimalist way: serial port/USB/dll layer is a stable floor, it made
your Python code very readable; if I simply let any app interface
automatically, should things malfunction, I'd have to trace the fault
from some established working floor.

I don't think I'd be able to do this if I obtained an interface
library in any language or Labview and relied on its abstraction to
keep my instruments together without knowing how its done.

If I write it myself, it seems it doesn't matter what the language
is, unless it offered some value in maintenance, speed or code size.

At 08:42 PM 12/6/2010, Chuck Harris wrote:

Sincerely,

Marv Gozum
Philadelphia, PA

Hi Marvin,

Python is appealing for a number of reasons.  First, it is an
interpreted scripting language.  You can make changes on the
fly and instantly see their effect.  Second, it is a very highly
structured object oriented language.  Third, it is available on
virtually all operating systems, and runs on virtually all processors.
Fourth, it has thousands of library functions available.  Chances are
that anything you want to do, library wise, has already been done, and
is waiting for you... python and graphs, python and surfaces, python
and audio, python and Octave, python and C++, python and burning DVD's,
python and well, visa compliant GPIB drivers...

Because it is scripted, Python is never going to be the fastest running
solution, but how fast do you need your GPIB code to be?  The libraries
are typically written in C++, and are blindingly quick.  The ease with
which you can make small changes and test them makes quick utilities
easy to put together.  The easy integration with packages like wxPython
makes building beautiful integrated graphical applications easy to toss
together.... and wxPython builds GUI's anywhere python runs... including
windows.

Perl would work too, but unless you are very disciplined, perl scripts
end up being write only... totally unintelligible when you come back
later to make changes... sometimes even the next day...

I like C a lot; however, it takes a serious amount of setting up
to make the compiler not barf with lots of undefined references.
Python shares a characteristic with BASIC in that using a variable
will cause it to be created, of the right type, and properly initialized.

And, unlike Labview, python will survive the NI's eventual bankruptcy, or
sale.  Python is heavily used in Linux, BSD unix, and even windows.  It
will be here for a long while.

-Chuck Harris

Marvin E. Gozum wrote:

The event was certainly not happenstance. It must have been carefully
planned. The only ones surprised were those not in on the prank, as
always.

Macys probably paid all the costs of the hack. It's since been done in a
bunch of other places. Once ius a showstopper. Done too often, it's a
PITA.

Anything free draws a crowd, at least for a few seconds. Anything.

As to the violin at the subway, I don't know what he was playing, but a
long piece would certainly have drawn fewer stoppers than something short.

FWIW,

-John

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

Many thanks again Chuck.  Beyond the facts, your passion for Python
says a lot.  I will take the time to dig into it.  I like interpreted
for onthefly results, I want easy set up, and flexibility in many
things particularly managing variables ala BASIC is always welcome; I
had something like it in Turbo Pascal and Delphi despite being
compiled.  I share your misgiving with C, just not good when you are
splitting time between hardware and software and want fast results.

I was going to give Free Pascal a whirl, but sound like Python may be enough.

http://www.python.org/about/

At 11:23 AM 12/7/2010, Chuck Harris wrote:

Best Wishes,

Marv Gozum
Philadelphia

FWIW, the little I've done in Python has been positive.  It's capable of
a lot -- the whole Gnuradio interface is built in python.

Personally, I've used perl under Linux for most of my GPIB stuff.  Since
perl is good at string handling, it works well for grabbing data from
the instrument, munging it a bit, then writing it to a log file -- which
is most of what I do.

John

On 12/7/2010 2:28 PM, Marv Gozum @ JHN wrote:

In message 4CFE8D43.8030409@febo.com, John Ackermann N8UR writes:

Python seems destined to become the new FORTRAN:  It is the default language
in a lot of scientific areas, including for instance genomics.

In addition to my HPIB hackery, I have written a generic disassembler
in python which so far have a M68K backend and a MC6800 backend
which have disassembled the HP3458A and HP5370B respectively.

--
Poul-Henning Kamp      | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer      | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Seems to me that John was a part of this thread...

-Chuck Harris

Matt Ettus wrote:

Matt meant /John Ackermann, the list administrator/.

-Rob

Op 8-12-2010 14:21, Chuck Harris schreef:

... and he was referring to this post on the time-nuts list:
http://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2010-November/051814.html

Op 8-12-2010 15:11, Rob Klein schreef:

So did I.

Rob Klein wrote:

Blech! Missed that one, sorry.

Op 8-12-2010 15:24, Chuck Harris schreef:

OK, I did join the thread -- but my posting was about programming
languages for data acquisition, which was pretty closely related to the
original, relatively on-topic, subject!

I recognize that the folks who inhabit both time-nuts and volt-nuts are
curious and clever, and that there will be off-topic diversions.  I ask
folks to exercise self-control, and think that polite reminders are OK
when things do drift.  But I also value my blood pressure so I try not
to get too heated up unless things degenerate into rudeness or complete
lack of respect for the other list members' bandwidth.

John

On 12/8/2010 9:43 AM, Rob Klein wrote:

Just as I cannot imagine time tracking in today's world without computer
assistance, I cannot imagine being a volt-nut without the same computer
assistance... I'm just not going to go back to hand drawn charts, and
chart recorders!  A thread on Python, Labview, GPIB, and similar issues is
certainly relevant to me.  Probably to others too.

I brought up the open source GPIB software and solutions because I would
much rather spend my limited coin on specialized hardware, than on high
priced software.

-Chuck Harris

Marvin E. Gozum wrote: