Chapter 1 Introduction
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National Instruments Corporation 1-3 VXI/VMEpc 600 Series for Windows 95/NT
The NI-VXI/VISA software for the VXI/VMEpc 600 Series is already
installed on your hard drive. It includes an interactive configuration and
troubleshooting program, libraries of software routines for test and
measurement (T&M) programming, interactive control programs for both
NI-VXI and NI-VISA, a logging utility you can use for debugging your
applications, and a VXI Resource Manager. You can use this software to
seamlessly program multiple-mainframe configurations and have software
compatibility across a variety of controller platforms.
National Instruments also includes the NI-488.2 software kit, which gives
you access to the industry-standard NI-488.2 software for controlling
external GPIB instruments through the GPIB port on the front panel. The
GPIB interface on your VXI/VMEpc controller is fully compatible with the
NI-488.2 driver for a variety of operating systems. Any software using
NI-488.2 will run on the VXI/VMEpc-650.
Use T&M Explorer to view your entire T&M system and configure various
components, whether they are Serial, GPIB, VXI, or VME devices. This
utility also adopts the functionality of the NI-DAQ Configuration utility so
you can configure National Instruments VXI-DAQ cards.
For VXI users, T&M Explorer also features various options of how to run
the VXI Resource Manager (Resman). You can still execute Resman
independently to configure your instruments after a power cycle, but you
can also perform resource manager operations directly from T&M Explorer
or configure it to run Resman automatically at startup.
The NI Spy utility tracks the calls your application makes to National
Instruments T&M drivers, including NI-VXI, NI-VISA, and NI-488.2.
NISpy helps you debug your application by clearly highlighting the
functions that return errors. You can let NISpy keep a log of your
program’s calls to these drivers so that you can check them for errors
atyour convenience.
Software Configurations
There are three software configurations described in this manual:
• NI-VXI for Windows 95—This is a fully 32-bit native Plug and Play
driver for Windows 95. You can run only 32-bit applications with this
driver. Applications developed using this driver run with NI-VXI for
Windows NT without the need to recompile.
• NI-VXI for Windows NT—This is a 32-bit driver designed for
Windows NT. You can use this version to develop and run 32-bit
applications for Windows 95/NT.