Configuring a National Instruments GPIB Card for Use with the Keysight IO Libraries Suite

This section contains information specific to the Windows product.

To use a National Instruments (NI) GPIB card with the Keysight IO Libraries Suite, you must install the National Instruments NI-488.2 software layer. The following steps will allow you to access your NI card with the Keysight IO Libraries Suite:

  1. Install the NI-488.2 software (version 1.5 or later) according to the instructions supplied with your NI card.

  2. Install and configure the NI GPIB card in your computer according to its documentation.|

  3. Install the Keysight IO Libraries Suite.

  4. Run Keysight Connection Expert. The IO Libraries Suite reads the settings for GPIB Primary Address and System Controller state values from the 488.2 library and uses them when configuring the card. Connection Expert displays the card as a 488.2 GPIB Interface and will automatically discover instruments connected to the interface.

Implementation Details

To configure NI GPIB cards in Keysight Connection Expert and to access NI GPIB cards when Keysight 488 is enabled, the Keysight IO Libraries must have direct access to gpib-32.dll, which implements the NI-488.2 API. NI does not supply a 64-bit version of gpib-32.dll, so Keysight supplies a 64-bit version of gpib-32.dll, which utilizes an NI-supplied object file (ni4882.obj) to forward NI-488.2 API calls to NI GPIB cards on 64-bit Windows platforms.

Possible Problem: Missed Interrupts

When you use an NI GPIB card with the Keysight IO Libraries, it is possible to miss interrupts. This is because the NI-488.2 architecture requires polling in the interrupt thread of the NI-488.2 to Keysight IO Libraries driver. Interrupts are polled approximately every 30 milliseconds, so if an interrupt condition lasts for less than that time, it is likely that the interrupt will not be detected.

Possible Problem: Cannot Communicate with Keysight Interface After Installing NI-488.2

When you install NI-488.2 software, the Keysight 488 library is automatically disabled, to avoid error messages that are displayed by some NI tools in the presence of the Keysight 488 DLL. Because of this, programs that use Keysight 488 (or NI-488.2–compatible code) to communicate with Keysight GPIB interfaces will not work. Correct this problem by enabling Keysight 488 as described in Keysight 488 or NI-488.2 Program Does Not Operate Correctly.

See Also

Using the Keysight IO Libraries Suite with Other Vendors' Hardware

Using the Keysight IO Libraries Suite with Other Vendors' I/O Software