| Installing the 82357A |
| Step 6: Programming via the 82357A |
Accessing VISA and | You can access .pdf copies of the Agilent VISA User’s Guide and the |
SICL Manuals | Agilent SICL User’s Guide for Windows from the blue IO icon on the |
| Windows taskbar. Adobe Reader is required to view these manuals. |
| To access the Agilent VISA User’s Guide, click the IO icon and then click |
| Documentation VISA Users Guide. To access the Agilent SICL User’s Guide |
| for Windows, click the IO icon and then click Documentation SICL Users |
| Guide. To access VISA COM information, and function references for VISA, |
| VISA COM, and SICL, click the IO icon and then click Documentation IO |
| Libraries Suite Help. |
Introduction to IO | An IO interface consists of a hardware interface and a software interface. |
Interface | One purpose of the Connection Expert utility is to associate a unique |
Configuration | software interface ID with a hardware interface. |
| The Agilent IO Libraries Suite uses an Interface ID or Logical Unit Number to |
| identify an interface. This information is passed in the parameter string of |
| the viOpen function call in a VISA program or in the iopen function call in |
| a SICL program. |
| Connection Expert assigns an Interface ID and Logical Unit (LU) Number to |
| the interface hardware, as well as other necessary configuration values for |
| an interface when the interface is configured. Typically, the LU Number is |
| automatically assigned and you can ignore its setting. The LU Number is |
| used internally as a unique identifier. When the IO interface is configured, |
| you can use Agilent VISA, VISA COM, or SICL to program assigned |
| instruments. |
Example: IO | For example, the GPIB interface system in the following figure consists of |
Interface | a Windows PC with an 82357A USB/GPIB Interface Converter connected |
Configuration | between a USB port and three GPIB instruments with GPIB primary |
| addresses of 3, 4, and 5, respectively. The instruments are connected via |
| GPIB cables. |
| For this system, the Connection Expert utility has been used to assign a |
| VISA name of “GPIB1” and a SICL name of “hpib7”. With these names |
| assigned to the interfaces, the VISA/SICL addressing is as shown in the |
| figure. |
| Since unique names have been assigned by Connection Expert, you can |
| use the VISA viOpen command to open the IO paths to the GPIB |
| instruments as shown in the figure. Or, you can use the SICL iopen |
| command to open the IO paths. |
Chapter 1 | 31 |