#1744

[@Dennis-uc2gm]

When I worked for a defense contractor in the 80's they built large racks of this type of equipment with a tech bench in front. The test bench utilized all kinds of specialized fixtures and cabling for "DUT" testing. It allowed very sophisticated military radar modules to be tested by regular techs without having to know a lot about the inner workings of what was in front of them.

[@timstreeter9795]

The gpib adapters and cables are so expensive, most modern equipment use LXI, which is the same but over the network and so much cheaper and faster.

[@kpnconsulting8739]

Yeah, it's really only useful when you're trying to control old boat anchors. Hence it's appearance on this channel...

[@_nemo171]

NIce collection of excellent equipment. Keithley rocks!

[@shagreobe]

Old Mcdonald had a farm GPIB IO

[@jspencerg]

There is freeware that will control the Keithley 23x and 24xx smu's. It's called "I-V Software" This software has configurations to evaluate solar cells and diodes. It allows one to control sweeps with simple commands. It has customizable graphics and one can easily export data. I use the NI USB-GPIB on Windows to connect. Installation of free NILabview runtime is necessary. This program runs my K236 without issue. BTW, the author also has a program to control the HP4192A.

[@IMSAIGuy]

Looks like it might not support the USB-GPIB adapter I have

[@jspencerg]

@@IMSAIGuy His description doesn't preclude any non-NI adapter. Only one way to find out!

[@THEELECTRICGUY]

Very usefull! Currently I am learning concepts related to GPIB, VXI chassis... for Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) at my job.... P.s. It would be great if u can make video on "StartTest" software or Test Console Software (or probable NI Test Stand)

[@robinbrowne5419]

I love that old Windows software. It was very clear and easy to read 👍

[@flapjack9495]

It was definitely the peak of UI design! It was so clear and straightforward. I miss that look.

[@ludmilascoles1195]

My first porgramming job was ieee set up. At the time I thought it was the most boring thing ever but I look back on it foundly

[@OZ1LQO]

I have the Prologix, they're quite expensive but really easy to work with. I've used it with gear which didn't support serial at all, it's really handy. I also happen to have the 2400, so I'm looking forward to your next video :-) :-)

[@kpnconsulting8739]

Great subject! I've heard bad things about those usb/gpib converter boxes. I'm very curious how far you can get with it. I've a few boat anchors that I'd like to wire up to a laptop and the converter boxes are the only reasonable solution to that.

[@lohikarhu734]

One of my early consulting jobs (1980) was to build a HPIB/IEEE1488 Interface for a piece of custom test equipment... Strangely, it was the end of my use of Intel components, as their GPIB IC had a failure mode when used with a Motorola CPU, and Intel "application engineers" were pretty useless, and not at all interested, if you weren't a massive company, so we switched to the Motorola device, and that worked better, and their AEs were actually helpful to anyone who called with a real question! Off-topic, but, worked with that interface "a while ago" (almost 44 years!)

[@boeschka]

thanks for your nice vid's I have a pair of Prologix myself and look forward to the follow-up vid and the Python code to control the instrument

[@yodal_]

It's insane how expensive these USB to GPIB adapters still are.

[@jspencerg]

$85 NI @aliexpress (year ago)

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

First used GPIB-488 with a PET to control a voltmeter far too long ago to think about. Next i built a 19" rack ATE with a PC, DMM, Switch matrix and PSU all controlled via 488, I remember that the switcher and DMM cost more than my house at the time :-0 Last time was about 4 years ago to run an EMC test chamber. So the operator only had to change antennas and amplifiers as prompted and the PC did the rest. I used an Ethernet to GPIB-488 converter so I could run the system from my office if i was just testing a single band with no hardware changes. great for checking the config program that was used to control the test. Still looking for a cheap bus interface for my home kit, or i could just stick with my PET 4016 which I've had since new.

[@barrybogart5436]

I had a SuperPET SP9000 which had RS232, Centronics and 488 as well as two processors (6502 and 6809). The floppy drives ran off 488 and were pretty fast. I don't have the machine now but maybe the manuals. I know I have a list of all the Peek and Poke addresses! I also had the Toronto PUG board which ran a Unix clone: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-9 The C compiler was very fast for a 1mHz machine! I bet there are still CoCoNuts around. Maybe Adrian has one.

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

@@barrybogart5436 a lot of PETs were used just as instrument controllers, don't know who put the gpib-488 bus on it but it must have been a big selling point. Never could afford a dual disc drive, did in the end get a single drive.

[@bob_mosavo]

Thanks 👍

[@ColinMcCormack]

You hardware guys! You have a device which speaks rs232 serial or GPIB which you send through an expensive cable to an expensive converter to usb which is then software converted to serial. You're writing scripts anyway. The script is going to issue serial commands anyway. Unless the Keithley rs232 is not capable, or you want to daisy chain several, you might consider straight serial. Love your work, though

[@IMSAIGuy]

I've already done rs232 videos with the keithley. I want to control multiple instruments. Most only have hpib.

[@MackenzeBowles]

great video, did you need to download any drivers to get the porlogix to work properly?

[@IMSAIGuy]

No

[@jspencerg]

My prior comment has disappeared. No record. I put a url in it. Is that why?

[@IMSAIGuy]

probably, KZbin does not like certain url links. not sure what the algorithm is. some make it though, others not.

[@ryebis]

There are open source avr / stm32 usb to GPIB adapters if people really still want to use HPIB / GPIB. e.g. UsbGpib which exposes a USBTMC interface.

[@IMSAIGuy]

I don't want to. I have to.

[@ryebis]

RS232 USB is the easier way out, unless you have something with only HPIB / GPIB.

[@daviddouard9294]

There are several of these, especially the AR488 project which uses Arduino, which I made an ESP32 version with several improvements (look for ar488-esp32, the main repo being on sourcehut, including a series of PCB design for different ESP32 boards) with optionally proper GPIB drivers (SN75160/162). It implements the "prologix" protocol, but add support for more GPIB features (and include support for wifi and bt thanks to the ESP32)

[@ryebis]

@@daviddouard9294 Good to know cheers, I have only tried a friend's UsbGpib adapter. I use rs232 with older equipment when I can, it's slower but I'm used to it. Wireless GPIB would be nice, but wouldn't it still need power supplied externally ?

[@daviddouard9294]

@@ryebisunfortunately yes, there is no easy way to gather power from the GPIB bus (like what you can do with SCSI , for example bluescsi dongles can be powered like that). But the nice thing with ESP32 is you can find ESP32 boards caoable of running from lipo batteries for dirt cheap. TBH I only use mines directly from USB since I have a small linux box buried in my stack of test equipment. But it might still be handy for some usage I suppose. The other nice thing with ESP32 is that it's powerful enough to think bout silly things like embedding a (HP)BASIC interpreter on it. It;s something I have in mind for some time but never found the time to really try it. The idea was to use tinybasic and extend it to make it as close as possible to the BASIC running on HP 80 machines or more adequately RMB (Rocky Mountain Basic). Would be fun (but so many projects...)

[@t1d100]

Anybody know of a decent Clone/Cheap/Asian GPIB/USB Interface Module and Freeware? Thanks!

[@boeschka]

You can Google for "AR488 board". Building an AR488 GPIB Interface

[@monteceitomoocher]

Our old friends at aliexpress sell them, still not cheap though!, averaging £50 to 60 to here in Britain.

[@daviddouard9294]

As mentioned above, there are several FOSS projects implementing Prologix-like GPIB interfaces, especially the AR488 and the ESP-AR488 (disclaimer: I wrote this later one from the original AR488 to use ESP32 instead of avr boards)

[@xorfive]

If you had kept a Commodore PET, you wouldn't have to buy the expensive USB adapter 😆

[@terrygains8327]

Would it be :OUTP:OFF and :OUTP:ON

[@IMSAIGuy]

ser.write(b':OUTPut ON ')

[@user.A9]

Internal bus voltages?

[@wiwingmargahayu6831]

wow db9 connector or db25

[@samreames1713]

GPIB connector... Most older equipment was pre-ethernet. Some even pre RS-232!