Register I/O

Register I/O refers to writing to and reading from registers in an instrument directly. These operations normally assume special hardware that allows direct access to the instrument's registers. Standard VISA.NET defines register I/O sessions for PXI and VXI hardware, which supports an I/O protocol that allows direct access to instrument registers, and in some cases to instrument memory.

For the most part, Keysight does not supply the register maps necessary for programming newer PXI register-based instruments. Using register maps directly with VISA or VISA.NET is error-prone and is complicated by the fact that register maps may change from one firmware version to another. Instead, Keysight recommends using instrument drivers for connecting to PXI and VXI instruments. Keysight provides a variety of instrument drivers, including IVI drivers, for register-based instruments. These drivers provide both the convenience of a programming API and a degree of insulation from the register map of the instrument.

Keysight VISA.NET supports register I/O. However, since Keysight does not recommend register-based I/O for customers, and since the mapping from the VISA.NET API to the VISA C API is close to 100%, getting started documentation is not provided here. Please consult the reference documentation for the VISA.NET API for details, starting with the reference documentation for the following register-based sessions: