Section 2: General operation
Models 707B and 708B Switching Matrix Reference Manual
2-56
707B-901-01 Rev. B / January 2015
You may lose your connection with the embedded web interface after clicking
Submit
. This is normal
and does not indicate an error or failure of the operation. If this occurs, re-open the web page of the
instrument to continue.
Supplied software
The majority of software applications and all instrument drivers from Keithley Instruments depend on
some, or all, of the following software components:
•
NI-VISA
TM
•
VISA shared components
•
IVI shared components
•
NI
TM
CVI
TM
runtime engine
•
NI
TM
IVI
TM
compliance package
Keithley instrument driverThese software components are included on the CD-ROMs that came with
your instrument, and are also available for download at the
Keithley Instruments support website
(
http://www.keithley.com/support
).
VISA
The Virtual Instrument Software Architecture (VISA) is a standards body that maintains the
specifications for a whole series of software components related to instrument connectivity (I/O). The
VISA specifications, formerly maintained by the VXIplug&play Systems Alliance, are now being
maintained by the
http://www.ivifoundation.org
).
The VISA library (standard VPP-4.3) is a standard for an API to communicate with instruments
connected to the computer communication buses: Ethernet, USB, RS-232, GPIB, and so on. VPP-4.3
is a software API standard — several instrument vendors have implementations of VPP-4.3, including
National Instruments, Agilent Technologies, and Tektronix.
There are three types of programming interfaces to VISA: VISA-C, VISA-COM and VISA .NET.
•
VISA-C is a DLL that has a flat API. The five main message-based functions are viOpenDFLT, viOpen,
viWrite, viRead and viClose.
•
VISA-COM is an ActiveX type interface to VISA that is more suited for the VB6 and .NET environments.
•
VISA.NET is a .NET interface for VISA that the IVI Foundation is currently (July 2010) standardizing on.
VISA shared components
The IVI Foundation provides the VISA shared components, which contain the VISA-COM
components that VISA vendors install with their VISA installations. There are separate entries in the
Add/Remove Programs dialog box for the VISA shared components and the vendor’s VISA.