HP E1312A and HP E1412A Multimeter Application Examples

HP VTL Software (VISA)

This section contains example programs that demonstrate several applications using the HP E1312A or HP E1412A Multimeter. The examples described in this section list only the SCPI commands (see Chapter 3, “Multimeter Command Reference”) required to perform the application. The programming language is not included in print but C and Visual Basic programs are included on the VXIplug&play driver media under the subdirectory “examples”.

Application example programs provided with the HP E1312A or HP E1412A Multimeter are written using VTL 3.0 (VISA Transition Language). VISA (Virtual Instrument Software Architecture) is an I/O library that can be used to create instrument drivers and I/O applications. Application programs written with VTL function calls can use VXIplug&play drivers (or SCPI commands) in systems that have the VTL I/O layer. VTL allows you to use software from different vendors together on the same platform. VTL can be used for I/O application development on Microsoft® Windows 3.1, and is supported on the VXI, GPIB-VXI, and GPIB interfaces. VISA 1.0 provides more VISA functionality and is fully operational on Windows® 95 and Windows NT® .

Example Programs Example programs are provided on the VXIplug&play media. These programs have been compiled and tested using Microsoft Visual C++ Version 1.51 for the C programs and Microsoft Visual Basic 3.0.

C Programs All projects written in C programming language require the following settings to work properly.

Project Type:QuickWin application (.EXE)
Project Files:<source code file name>.C

[drive:]\VXIPNP\WIN\LIB\MSC\VISA.LIB (Microsoft compiler)

[drive:]\VXIPNP\WIN\LIB\BC\VISA.LIB (Borland compiler)

Memory Model:Options Project Compiler Memory Model ⇒ Large
Directory Paths:Options Directories

Include File Paths: [drive:]\VXIPNP\WIN\INCLUDE

Library File Paths: [drive:]\VXIPNP\WIN\LIB\MSC (Microsoft) [drive:]\VXIPNP\WIN\LIB\BC (Borland)

Example Programs: [drive:]\DSCPI\e1412 (on driver CD) [drive:]\DSCPI\e1312 (on driver CD)

Visual Basic Programs All projects written in the Visual Basic programming language require the following settings to work properly.

Project Files: <source code file name>.FRM

[drive:]\VXIPNP\WIN\INCLUDE\VISA.BAS

Note If using Windows 3.1, change “spc” to “cps” in the Memory I/O Operations section of VISA.BAS

52 HP E1312A/E1412A Multimeter Application Information

Chapter 2