Chapter 1
Introduction
VXIpc 770/870B Series User Manual
1-4
ni.com
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The
VXI Interface
connects the VXIpc 770/870B Series controllers to
the VXI backplane through the National Instruments MITE ASIC.
•
The
External Clock SMB
provides an input for an external source to
generate CLK10 to the VXI backplane or allow you to output CLK10
to an external device.
•
The
VXI Trigger In/Out SMBs
provide a routable connection of the
VXI triggers to and from the VXI backplane.
The following blocks apply to the VXIpc 870B Series only.
•
The
Wide Ultra2 SCSI
provides a PCI-SCSI interface using the
LSI53C895A SCSI controller.
•
The
CardBus
block represents a PCI-CardBus interface using the
TIPCI-1450 CardBus host bus adapter.
•
The
PCI Slot
represents the PCI expansion slot available on the
VXIpc-872B and VXIpc-875B.
National Instruments Software
National Instruments has developed several software kits you can use with
the VXIpc 770/870B Series. NI-VISA and NI-VXI are already installed on
your hard drive; LabVIEW is optional.
NI-VISA is the National Instruments implementation of the VISA
specification. VISA is a uniform API for communicating and controlling
Serial, GPIB, VXI, and VME instruments. This API aids in the creation of
more portable applications and instrument drivers.
NI-VXI is the name of the National Instruments VXI bus control library.
You can create applications using NI-VXI to control both VXI and VME
devices. NI-VXI gives you complete VXI/VME functionality, including
an API for performing basic VXI/VME data transfers and handling
VXI/VME interrupts as well as VXI-specific functionality, such as
doing message-based communication and handling VXIbus triggers.
The NI-VISA/NI-VXI software includes an interactive configuration and
troubleshooting program, libraries of software routines for test and
measurement (T&M) programming, interactive control programs for both
NI-VISA and NI-VXI, 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.