Measurement Computing Personal488 rev.3.0 For DOS & Windows 3.Xi - Manual (Page 207)

10A. Introduction II. SOFTWARE GUIDES - 10. Driver488/W31
II-192 Personal488 User’s Manual, Rev. 3.0
10. Driver488/W31
Sub-Chapters
10A. Introduction ............................................................................. II-191
10B. Installation & Configuration ................................................ II-192
10C. External Device Interfacing ................................................. II-202
10D. Getting Started ........................................................................ II-205
10E. C Languages ............................................................................ II-208
10F. Visual Basic .............................................................................. II-232
10G. Utility Programs...................................................................... II-251
10H. Command Reference............................................................... II-256
10A. Introduction
Note: Driver488/WIN from previous manuals, has been renamed Driver488/W31.
Driver488/W31 includes a Windows Dynamic Link Library ( DLL ) for integrating IEEE 488.2 control
into Microsoft Windows applications. Driver488/W31 transfers data at up to 1M byte/second. It uses
HP-style IEEE 488 commands for high- and low-level IEEE 488.1 bus control, and offers additional
commands that support the IEEE 488.2 standard. Furthermore, Driver488/W31 conforms to Windows’
standard application architecture, allowing Windows to link with the IEEE 488 driver during run time,
and to manage its memory requirements, interrupts and messages.
Because Microsoft Windows enables multitasking, multiple test applications may concurrently require
access to the same network of IEEE 488 instruments. Driver488/W31 automatically arbitrates among
test applications, letting multiple applications run concurrently without the risk of data loss.
Microsoft Windows provides access to Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), a mechanism by which
unrelated applications can exchange data during run time. Driver488/W31 lets you use this inter-
application communication technique to transfer data acquired from instruments to any other
compatible application. For example, with Driver488/W31, an application program can collect data
from an instrument and automatically transfer it to a concurrently running Excel spreadsheet.
Driver488/W31 provides language interfaces for Microsoft C, Quick C on Windows, Visual Basic,
Turbo C and Borland C++. Driver488/W31 makes IEEE events in your C or C++ applications
conform to Windows’ standard event handling scheme, passing IEEE events such as bus errors and
SRQ s to Windows as standard messages. This assures consistent handling of IEEE and user events.
Visual Basic lets you easily develop full-featured Windows applications. Unlike DOS-based test-
system development environments, which merely code for insertion into an application, Visual Basic
greatly simplifies the task of adding a user interface to your application. In addition, Visual Basic
contains a tool palette for designing your application’s user interface, letting you use point-and-click
operations to design and test your interface.
Driver488/W31 augments this tool palette with an IEEE Event Custom Control tool. When you
include this Event Custom Control tool in your application, it creates service routines for IEEE events
such as bus errors and instruments interrupts (
SRQ ), letting your application handle asynchronous bus
events with ease. At run time, the IEEE Event Custom Control traps IEEE events which are then
automatically dispatched to the appropriate service routines.