Table of Contents
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Chapter 1
Introduction
Software Description
National Instruments Application Software
Getting Started with Your PXI-8150 Series
National Instruments has developed several software kits you can use
with the PXI-8150 Series. The software is already installed on your hard
drive.
You can use the NI-VISA high-level API to program GPIB, Serial,
parallel, and PXI devices in much the same manner. The NI-VISA kit
includes installation disks you can use if you need to reinstall the
software, and the NI-VISA User Manual.
The NI-488.2M software kit is the industry standard for controlling
external GPIB instruments through the GPIB port on the PXI-8156 front
panel. The software is already installed on your hard drive, and you also
receive backup installation disks and the NI-488.2M User Manual for
Windows 95 and Windows NT and the NI-488.2M Function Reference
Manual for Win32.
The GPIB interface is fully compatible with the NI-488.2M driver for a
variety of operating systems. Any software using NI-488.2M will run
on the PXI-8150.
You can use the National Instruments LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI
application programs and instrument drivers to ease your programming
tasks. These standardized programs match the modular virtual
instrument capability of PXI and can reduce your application
development time. These programs are fully VXIplug&play compliant
and feature extensive libraries of GPIB, Serial, and VXI instrument
drivers written to take full advantage of direct PXI control. LabVIEW
and LabWindows/CVI include all the tools needed for instrument
control, data acquisition, analysis, and presentation.
LabVIEW is a complete programming environment that departs from
the sequential nature of traditional programming languages and features
a graphical programming environment.
LabWindows/CVI is an interactive C development environment for
building test and measurement and instrument control systems. It
includes interactive code-generation tools and a graphical editor for
building custom user interfaces.
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© National Instruments Corporation
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