Measurement Computing Personal488 rev.3.0 - Manual (Page 63)

Personal488 for Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000 04-09-01 Using IEEE 488 5-9
For this example, we select the Enter
command. The Enter command,
returns the number of characters
actually read. In this example the
return is 256.
The Close command is used to close
an open device handle. Close should
be called before ending a program. For
the most part, all handles will be
forcibly closed when a program
terminates. However, in some
instances handles can remain active due
to the driver remaining in memory after
program termination. If a handle
remains open, no other programs will
be able to access it including the
program that left the handle open.
This completes a simple transaction. Your application will no doubt be more complex; however, it will still
consist of
• opening a device name
• programming a device
• reading data from the device
In this example we only discussed a small subset of the available API commands. You can use WinTest to
explore other API function calls. Refer to the API Reference section of this manual for additional
information regarding each command.