Chapter 4
Begin to Use the GPIB Software
©
National Instruments Corporation
4-3
PXI-GPIB/PMC-GPIB for Windows NT
Introduction to the NI Spy Utility
Included with the GPIB software is NI Spy, a Win32 utility that monitors
and records multiple National Instruments APIs (for example, NI-488.2
and VISA). You can use NI Spy to monitor Win32, Win16, and DOS GPIB
applications. Use NI Spy to do the following:
•
Capture information about NI-488 functions and NI-488.2 routines as
your GPIB applications invoke them.
•
Display captured information, including, but not limited to, input and
output parameter values, I/O buffer contents, and return values.
•
Save, restore, and print captured information.
To run NI Spy, select the NI Spy item under Start»Programs»GPIB
Software.
For more information about the NI Spy utility, refer to Chapter 5, NI Spy
Utility, in the GPIB User Manual for Windows 95 and Windows NT, or use
its built-in, context-sensitive online help.
Running Existing GPIB Applications
You can run existing Win32, Win16, and DOS GPIB applications under
Windows NT.
Win32 and Win16 GPIB applications run without any special
modifications. To run an existing DOS GPIB application, complete the
following steps.
Load the special GPIB device driver
gpib-nt.com
instead of
gpib.com
,
which you normally use with DOS. When you install the GPIB software,
the GPIB setup program copies
gpib-nt.com
into a new subdirectory
called
doswin16
. To use
gpib-nt.com
, you must modify your
config.nt
file to load
gpib-nt.com
whenever a DOS application runs.
The
config.nt
file is located in your
winnt\system32
directory, where
winnt
is your Windows NT directory, for example,
c:\windows
. The
GPIB setup program modifies the
config.nt
file by adding the following
lines:
REM *** To run DOS GPIB applications, uncomment the
REM *** following line
REM device=
path\doswin16\gpib-nt.com
