Didier Juges wrote:

Making changes for the sake of making changes is probably a folly.
The Prologix concept is sound the way it is, but it should have some
mention of the known limitations.

It would be nice if we could find a couple of other folks that
have 3478's to test with the Prologix unit.

Because the 3478 uses 75ALS160/161's, it could have the tristate/pullup
modes selected by the microprocessor.  So it could be a part failure,
or a firmware problem.

I will try and determine which is true, but it will have to wait for
a while.

Thanks to all for their help and input into my problem

-Chuck Harris

Well, I have a 3478A, but unfortunately not a Prologix. If I get my hands on one
I could add a data point.
Personally, I think there is a fault in that particular 3478's driver chips.

Daun

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On Behalf
Of Chuck Harris
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 8:06 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] OT: Prologix GPIB and HP3478A...The Answer!

Didier Juges wrote:

Making changes for the sake of making changes is probably a folly.
The Prologix concept is sound the way it is, but it should have some
mention of the known limitations.

It would be nice if we could find a couple of other folks that
have 3478's to test with the Prologix unit.

Because the 3478 uses 75ALS160/161's, it could have the tristate/pullup
modes selected by the microprocessor.  So it could be a part failure,
or a firmware problem.

I will try and determine which is true, but it will have to wait for
a while.

Thanks to all for their help and input into my problem

-Chuck Harris

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and follow the instructions there.

Daun --

Guess who you see frequently who has a Prologix you might able to borrow...

John

Daun Yeagley said the following on 11/28/2007 08:45 PM:

I am aware of at least 2 more 3478 at my workplace, one of them actually has
been in my office for so long I forgot about it. It has worked fine with the
older Prologix controller (the one without a case,) with nothing else on the
bus now that I think of it :-) Different firmware but same Atmel chip I
believe. I used the 3478/Prologix as a temperature data logger with a
thermistor for a while. I liked the 3478 so much I bought one for myself on
eBay, that's how I ended up with one :-)

On this subject, I recently wrote a short Visual basic program to help me
with temperature calculations from thermistors. It is at
http://www.ko4bb.com/Thermistor
Get your free copy while they last :-)

Didier KO4BB

Hi Duan,

I was thinking that way until I moved on to try
another instrument, my Tektronix 7854, only to find
that the Prologix can't address it either!  The Prologix
doesn't hang like it did on the 3478A, but the Tektronix
acts as if it isn't on the bus at all.

I know we have some communication going on because if
I force SRQ on the tektronix, and issue a ++srq command
to the Prologix, the Prologix returns "1" showing
the SRQ line is asserted.  But if I do a ++spoll 10
the 7854's address) the SRQ line is not reset.

As an experiment, I put my 3437A on the bus to act as
surrogate pull up resistors; the 3437A works, but the
7854 is still deaf to the Prologix's charms.

It comes as no surprise to me, however, that when I drive
the 7854 with my HP85B, the 7854 works just fine.

[Everything works with the HP85B.,, Over the nearly 20 years
that I have used an HP85B, I have never found an instrument
that it couldn't make play straight out of the box.]

This is beginning to look more and more like I have a
bad Prologix adapter.

Oh Abdul??

-Chuck Harris

Daun Yeagley wrote:

Hi Didier,

I am more and more coming to the conclusion that my 3478A is just fine,
but my Prologix adapter is a victim of infant mortality.

It can't address my Tektronix 7854 either.

-Chuck Harris

Didier Juges wrote:

Hi Chuck

That's certainly a possibility that your Prologix has a problem.
The comments on the HP-85, etc. parallel mine.  I worked for HP starting back in
1979, as an "HPIB Specialist".  My first experience was with the 9825 ("HPL"),
and when the HP-85 came out, it became the workhorse, although the 9835 and 9845
were fancier and certainly faster. My favorite though was the 200 and 300 series
with the real RMB (Rocky Mountain Basic, nicknamed so because it was developed
in  the Fort Collins Desktop Computer Division (DCD). I still have one or two,
and has always been my favorite for doing instrument I/O.  Now I do a lot of it
using the Microsoft stuff... VB, and more recently C#.  Life for I/O was
certainly a lot simpler and foolproof in the RMB days.  Now, it makes me attempt
to go bald!

Daun

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On Behalf
Of Chuck Harris
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 10:41 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] OT: Prologix GPIB and HP3478A...The Plot thickens!!

Hi Duan,

I was thinking that way until I moved on to try
another instrument, my Tektronix 7854, only to find
that the Prologix can't address it either!  The Prologix
doesn't hang like it did on the 3478A, but the Tektronix
acts as if it isn't on the bus at all.

I know we have some communication going on because if
I force SRQ on the tektronix, and issue a ++srq command
to the Prologix, the Prologix returns "1" showing
the SRQ line is asserted.  But if I do a ++spoll 10
the 7854's address) the SRQ line is not reset.

As an experiment, I put my 3437A on the bus to act as
surrogate pull up resistors; the 3437A works, but the
7854 is still deaf to the Prologix's charms.

It comes as no surprise to me, however, that when I drive
the 7854 with my HP85B, the 7854 works just fine.

[Everything works with the HP85B.,, Over the nearly 20 years
that I have used an HP85B, I have never found an instrument
that it couldn't make play straight out of the box.]

This is beginning to look more and more like I have a
bad Prologix adapter.

Oh Abdul??

-Chuck Harris

Daun Yeagley wrote:

one

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It sounds obvious, but make sure the board is pressed all the way onto the
connector.  The housing makes it a little bit difficult to tell if the GPIB
connection is properly seated.  This has tripped me up before.

-- john, KE5FX