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Thank you for using GPIB-488, Version 2.3.
This file contains last-minute information about the GPIB-488 software. Some information in this file may be too recent to be included in the official documentation set.
Hardware and Software Requirements to Develop Applications
Hardware and Software Requirements to Execute Applications
GPIB-488 consists of driver and program development software for controlling IEEE 488 (HP-IB, GPIB, and IEC-625) instruments. It supports a full range of IEEE 488 interface hardware with the Windows operating system and popular programming languages and application development packages. GPIB-488 supports LabVIEW™ and many other programs.
Note: When installing on a Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 system without critical updates, you may encounter an error message during installation. To prevent this message from appearing, do either of the following before running the GPIB-488 installation:
No special hardware is required to develop GPIB applications.
To develop GPIB applications, you must have one of the supported Windows programming languages:
You also can use one of the popular development environments that work with IEEE 488:
To execute GPIB applications, you must have a supported hardware interface installed. Refer to the getting started guide for a list of supported hardware.
To execute GPIB applications, the GPIB-488 drivers must be installed on your system.
The getting started guide contains setup information, including:
The getting started guide is available in the root directory on your software CD.
The GPIB Programming Reference Manual contains general information, including:
The GPIB Programming Reference Manual is available at Start»Programs»GPIB-488.
This software package ships with examples to assist you in developing applications. Some are in the GPIB Programming Reference Manual. You can find others at Start»Programs»GPIB-488.
The GPIB488 API is an improved version of the original GPIB-32 API, updated with modern software design principles. Applications compiled with the GPIB-32 API should remain mostly unchanged when compiled with the GPIB488 API. Refer to the GPIB Programming Reference Manual for more details. You can find the manual at Start»Programs»GPIB-488.
Yes. However, you must use the GPIB488 API. All other APIs are available for 32-bit development only.
Some interpreted languages, such as C# or Visual Basic.NET, can target both 32-bit and 64-bit (any CPU). Therefore, be sure that when using an API other than GPIB488, the 32-bit variant is explicitly targeted. This can be an issue specifically when using C# or Visual Basic.NET on a 64-bit system.
The software ships with the following utilities:
Yes, you can use NI-VISA™ with this release.
Yes. NI-VISA is the recommended method to interact with your hardware through LabVIEW. When installing LabVIEW, you should uncheck NI-488.2 from the feature tree to prevent problems due to the presence of both drivers on the system.
Yes, silent installs are available on all supported operating systems. To perform a default install, open a command prompt and type:
setup.exe /q /AcceptLicenses yes
To have more control over what features are installed, edit the sample.spec file located on your CD in the SupportFiles folder. Replace "Default" with "Absent" for the features you don't want installed. Then open a command prompt and type the following command:
setup.exe sample.spec /q /AcceptLicenses yes
You will need to replace sample.spec in the above command with the full path to your edited sample.spec file if it is not located in the same folder as setup.exe.