README.TXT for Agilent E1458 96-Channel Digital Input / Output Contents: 1 Introduction 1.1 Viewing the Help on Windows 10 Systems 2 VISA Specific Information 2.1 Instrument Addresses 2.2 Executing the Soft Front Panel without VISA 3 Using the Agilent 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 WINDOWS 7 x64 Installation. Additional upgrade needed. 6.0 Online Information 7.0 Revision History - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Introduction The help file included with the Agilent E1458 VXIplug&play driver contains instrument and programming information. This readme file contains additional information for the VXIplug&play programmer. 1.1 Viewing the Help on Windows 10 Systems The old WinHelp does not run by default on Windows 10 Systems...at least when this driver was updated. A solution was found in the third message on this web site: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-other_settings/winhlp32exe-windows-10/5971eda3-3a07-4156-af2a-926c65eb5a0c The following steps came from the above web site and allow older Winhlp to run on Windows 10 systems: To enable Winhlp to work in Windows 10, follow these simple instructions. a) Download the updated Winhlp32 installation files, which are compressed into a zip file (winhlp32-windows-7-10-x86-64.zip) from the following link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_tSrOg4FLp1T0dyTEppaW9SYm8 b) Extract the contents of of the file you just downloaded (winhlp32-windows-7-10-x86-64.zip) c) Run the Install.cmd as Administrator by right-clicking on Install.cmd, then select Run as Administrator. d) Acknowledge any privilege warnings and allow Install.cmd to proceed. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. VISA Specific Information The following topics refer to instances when the driver is used with different versions of VISA. 2.1 Instrument Addresses When using 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 VISA The 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. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Using the 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++ Refer to your Microsoft Visual C/C++ manuals for information on linking and calling .DLLs. 3.2 Borland C/C++ Refer to your Borland C/C++ manuals for information on linking and calling .DLLs. 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 ~\winnt\include or ~\win95\include. The ~ refers to the directory in the VXIPNPPATH variable. By default this is set to C:\VXIPNP on Agilent I/O Libraries revisions prior to J.01.00; or to C:\Program Files\VISA on revisions J.01.00 or later. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.0 WINDOWS 7 x64 Installation. Additional upgrade needed. 5.1 Version A.02.08 consists of an upgrade to the Installation software for installing the E1458A driver on Windows 7 x64 systems. You must also install the following software upgrade: In Windows 7, the update WinHlp32.exe is required to display 32-bit Help files that have the ".hlp" file name extension. The update is available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6.0 Online Information The latest copy of this instrument driver and other Agilent instrument drivers are available at the Agilent Technologies customer WWW site: http://www.agilent.com/find/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 Agilent Technologies website: http://www.agilent.com/find/assist - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7.0 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 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 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 A.02.07 October 30, 2001 Agilent rebranding hpe1458_32.dll A.02.07 hps1458.exe A.02.07 hpdig_i32v.dll G.05.07 visaext.dll K.01.00.00 hpvscp32.dll G.03.04 A.02.08 February 20, 2012 This release updates the InstallShield for installations only on XP, WIN 7 x86 and WIN 7 x64 operating systems.The driver itself has not changed. For Win 95 or Win NT support, utilze version A.02.07. A.02.09 September 2019 Keysight rebranding of SFP and Help hpe1458_32.dll A.02.07 hps1458.exe A.02.08 hpdig_i32v.dll G.05.07 visaext.dll K.01.00.00 hpvscp32.dll G.03.04 - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------