README.TXT for HP E1458 96-Channel Digital Input / Output
Contents:
1 Introduction
2 VTL/VISA Specific Information
2.1 Instrument Addresses
2.2 Executing the Soft Front Panel without VTL/VISA
3 Using the HP E1458 Driver in Application Development Environments
3.1 Microsoft Visual C/C++
3.2 Borland C/C++
3.3 Microsoft Visual Basic
4.0 Known Defects
5.0 Online Information
6.0 Revision History
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1. Introduction
The help file included with the HP E1458 VXIplug&play driver contains
instrument and programming information. This readme file contains
additional information for the HP VXIplug&play programmer.
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2. VTL/VISA Specific Information
The following topics refer to instances when the driver is used with
different versions of VTL.
2.1 Instrument Addresses
When using HP VXIplug&play instrument drivers, instrument addresses must
be all uppercase letters. Implementation of the addressing scheme is
vendor specific and some vendors support mixed cases. However, for
maximum portability, the instrument address should use uppercase
characters only.
For example: use "VXI0::144::INSTR" instead of "vxi0::144::instr"
2.2 Executing the Soft Front Panel without VTL/VISA
The VTL/VISA dynamic link library provides a communication library
between your program and the instrument. The SFP may be executed without
VISA or without the HPE1458.dll present. It will do a partial emulation
of the hardware for demo purposes.
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3. Using the HP E1458 Driver in Application Development Environments
This section offers suggestions on using the hpe1458.dll within
various application development environments.
3.1 Microsoft Visual C/C++
The file hpe1458.mak included in this release is an EXTERNAL makefile
for use with Microsoft Visual C/C++. To use it, send the command
"nmake -f hpe1458.mak".
Refer to your Microsoft Visual C/C++ manuals for information on linking
and calling .DLLs.
A.) Programs should be compiled and linked using the large memory model.
B.) The driver uses Pascal calling conventions.
C.) Rebuilding the driver DLL should be done in a different directory than
the one the driver was installed in order to differentiate the changes.
3.2 Borland C/C++
Refer to your Borland C/C++ manuals for information on linking and
calling .DLLs.
A.) Programs should be compiled and linked using the large memory model.
B.) The driver uses Pascal calling conventions.
C.) Rebuilding the driver DLL should be done in a different directory than
the one the driver was installed in order to differentiate the changes.
3.3 Microsoft Visual Basic
Refer to the Microsoft Visual BASIC manual for information on calling DLLs.
The BASIC include file is hpe1458.bas, which is contained in the directory
~vxipnpwinXXinclude. The ~ refers to the directory in the VXIPNP variable.
By default this is set to C:. winXX refers to the operating system -- win95
or winNT.
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4.0 Known Defects
4.1 hpe1458_traceData_Q() has a char array (traceData[]). This array
is not NULL terminated by the instrument and therefor the instrument
manuals only indicate the need to allocate the array to the size of
the trace. However, some Plug&Play platforms treat char arrays as
if they were strings -- and expect a NULL terminator. The user should
allocate the char array to an extra byte so that a NULL terminator will
be present at the end of the array when the platform treats this char
array as a string.
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5.0 Online Information
The latest copy of this instrument driver and other HP instrument
drivers are available at the Hewlett-Packard customer WWW site:
http://www.hp.com/go/inst_drivers
The hpe1458 driver is located in a self-extracting archive file called
e1458.exe.
If you do not have Internet access, the drivers can be obtained by
contacting your country support organization. In the US, the phone
number is 800-452-4844. A list of contact information for other
countries is available on the Access HP website:
http://www.tmo.hp.com/tmo/contacts/English/callcenters.html
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6.0 Revision History
A.01.00 June 14, 1996 Initial Release.
A.02.00 November 14, 1996 WIN32 Release.
A.02.02 April 3, 1998 Fixed High Speed computer problems
hpe1458_32.dll A.02.02
hps1458.exe A.02.02
hpdig_i32v.dll G.05.04
A.02.03 September 10, 1998
Changed the C-SCPI dll to work better with the HP E8491 interface.
Corrected hpe1458.bas.
hpe1458_32.dll A.02.02
hps1458.exe A.02.02
hpdig_i32v.dll G.05.05
A.02.06 July 9, 1999
More changes to the C-SCPI dll for faster HP E8491 operation.
hpe1458_32.dll A.02.06
hps1458.exe A.02.06
hpdig_i32v.dll G.05.06
visaext.dll H.01.00.01
hpvscp32.dll G.03.03
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