Driver488/w31 – Measurement Computing Personal488 rev.3.0 For DOS & Windows 3.Xi User Manual

Page 375

18C. Driver488/SUB

IV. TROUBLESHOOTING - 18. Troubleshooting Checklists

IV-360

Personal488 User’s Manual, Rev. 3.0

The interface

NAME

represents DOS device name of the controller interface. This

NAME

recommended to be IEEE for direct compatibility with application programs. This

NAME

should

not be related to an external instrument unless you are configuring an external device and not the
interface itself.

To configure an external device, refer to Step 9 below.

The IEEE bus address should be set to any address between

and

and should not conflict with

any addresses on the bus. This is not the address of your instrument and should not be, unless you
are configuring an external device and not the interface itself.

To configure an external device, refer to Step 9 below.

SysController

and

LightPen

typically should be checked unless you are using the interface in

Peripheral mode.

Press

to get a picture of the configured board and verify jumper settings.

Press

to configure an external device. The default is two devices:

DEV

and

WAVE

. At least

one known device name should be configured in order to execute the subroutine

“OpenName”

successfully. It is not recommended to delete

DEV

WAVE

for compatibility purposes.

10.

Press

to save the

DRVR488.INI

file and exit.

11.

If the

DRVR488.EXE

is already loaded in memory, remove it or simply reboot your computer and

reload it again because the

DRVR488.EXE

reads the

DRVR488.INI

file only at loading time.

12.

Start writing a simple program in a high-level language (

BASIC

, or

Pascal

) using the

Output

and

Enter

subroutines to make sure you can read and write, and communicate properly with your

instrument. For information on how to write a program, refer to the Sub-Chapter “Getting Started”
in Chapter 9 “Driver488/SUB.”

13.

If you can write properly to your instrument but you cannot read anything from it, refer to the

Term

subroutine in “Section III: Command References” in this manual, to match up the

terminators sent by the instrument with the terminators expected by the Driver488. Refer to your
instrument manual to find the types of terminators appended to its response. Typically, these
terminators are

and

If problems still persist, consult your service representative for assistance. Once Driver488/SUB is
properly installed and configured, you are ready to start programming..

18D. Driver488/W31

Remove the card from the computer and note the selected switch and jumper settings, such as those
for: I/O address, DMA channel, and interrupt level. For switch and jumper definitions, refer to
“Section I: Hardware Guides” in this manual. If you have an NB488, which is the parallel to
IEEE 488 controller interface, verify the interrupt level of your LPT port or run the

NBTEST

program.

Run the

CONFIG

program which acts as an editor of the

DRVR488W.INI

initialization file. This

DRVR488W.INI

is referred to by the

DRVR488W.EXE

program when loading in memory. If this

initialization file is not edited properly, the

DRVR488W.EXE

program will fail during loading or

when communicating on the bus.

In the

CONFIG

program, first select the

DEVICE TYPE

which can be: MP488CT, MP488, AT488,

GP488 or NB488. These are 5 different hardware interfaces that are supported by the same
Driver488 software. You should select the interface that you are using. To identify your interface,
refer to “Section I: Hardware Guides.”

Note: For GP488 users (which is an 8-bit IEEE 488 controller plug-in card), make sure you have
a recent and compatible version of the hardware.

Once the

DEVICE TYPE

is selected, start selecting the I/O address, DMA channel and interrupt

level according to the switch settings determined in Step 1 above. Make sure none of these