© National Instruments Corporation 1-1 NI-FBUS Monitor User Manual
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Introduction
This chapter contains an overview of the NI-FBUS Monitor.

NI-FBUS Monitor Overview

The NI-FBUS Monitor is a Win32 application used to monitor, debug,
and analyze fieldbus data packets. The NI-FBUS Monitor detects
communication on the bus, capturing data packets that are passed between
fieldbus devices. These packets are time-stamped and displayed in real
time in active packet view of the NI-FBUS Monitor. The NI-FBUS
Monitor can display data packets in decoded format or in hexadecimal
format. The NI-FBUS Monitor can filter out unwanted data packets at three
levels: the Fieldbus Data Link layer (FDL), the Fieldbus Messaging
Specification layer (FMS), and by fieldbus addresses.

Windows of the NI-FBUS Monitor

The NI-FBUS Monitor has a Multiple Document Interface (MDI). An MDI
window contains many smaller windows open concurrently that display
data from different sources. These smaller windows are called filter
windows. In the NI-FBUS Monitor, some filter windows might contain
previously-captured data, while other filter windows might capture new
data from different buses or the same bus.
Chapter3, Wi ndows and Menus, lists and describes the windows of the
NI-FBUS Monitor.

Recommended Minimum Platform

The recommended minimum platform for the NI-FBUS Monitor is a
66 MHz 486 processor with 8 MB of RAM. If you want to run the
NI-FBUS Monitor on a slower platform, refer to the Improving
Performance section of Chapter 4, How To Use the NI-FBUS Monitor.