Spectrum Brands MC.31XX manual Software Overview, First Test with SBench

Software Overview Software

Software

This chapter gives you an overview about the structure of the drivers and the software, where to find and how to use the examples. It detailed shows how the drivers are included under different programming languages and where the differences are when calling the driver functions from different programming languages.

This manual only shows the use of the standard driver API. For further information on programming drivers for third-party software like LabVIEW, MATLAB, DASYLab or VEE an additional manual is required that is de- livered with the ordered driver option.

Software Overview

The Spectrum drivers offer you a common and fast API for using all of the board hardware features. This API is nearly the same on all operating systems. Based on this API one can write your own programs using any programming language that can access the driver API. This manual detailed describes the driver API allowing you to write your own programs.

The optional drivers for third-party products like LabVIEW or DASYLab are also based on this API. The special functionality of these drivers is not subject of this manual and is described on separate manuals delivered with the driver option.

First Test with SBench

After installation of the board and the drivers it can be useful to first test the board function with a ready to run software before starting with programming. A full version of SBench 5.x is de- livered with the board on CD. The program supports all actual acquisition, generator and dig- ital I/O boards from Spectrum. Depending on the used board and the software setup, one could use SBench as a digital storage oscilloscope, a spectrum analyser, a logic analyser or simply as a data recording front end. Different export and import formats allow the use of SBench together with a variety of other programs.

On the CD you’ll find an install version of SBench in the directory /Install/SBench. There’s also a pre-installed program version on CD that can be started directly from CD without installing to hard disk. This file can be found in the /Programs/SBench5 directory. Also on CD is a pro- gram description that shows in detail how SBench works and what settings have to be done to use SBench in one of the different modes. The manual is found in the path /Internet/english/ swmanuals/SBench.

The current version of SBench can be down loaded free of charge directly from the Spectrum

website http://www.spectrum-instrumentation.com. Please go to the download section and get the latest version there.

SBench is designed to run under Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It does not run under Linux. At the moment there is no graphical ready-to-run software for Linux available. Please use the driver examples to examine whether the board is correctly installed under Linux.

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