PROPERTY OF AMETEK, INC.
–
ORTEC
®
ORTEC
®
EASY-NIM
™
928 Suite
932512A / 0114
2
1.2.
DEVELOPING CUSTOM SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS FOR THE 928
The EASY-NIM 928 suite of instruments are members of the ORTEC C
ONNECTIONS
software architecture. C
ONNECTIONS
is a
unified scheme under which all instruments transmit and receive instrument commands and responses. It is the
lowest-level software component used by ORTEC applications to communicate with hardware. C
ONNECTIONS
locates
and establishes communication with ORTEC instruments that are directly connected to the computer, connected to
other computers in the network, or freestanding. It handles all of the details of network communication.
C
ONNECTIONS
also handles the sending of commands to the hardware and the receipt of responses. The syntax of
commands sent via C
ONNECTIONS
conforms with the “traditional” NIM digital bus NIM/4881 per DOE/ER-0457T
(formerly NIM-GPIB) protocol
3
used for several years in all ORTEC MCB and MCS products.
In the case of the EASY-NIM 928, the module itself uses these protocols. In certain other instruments, C
ONNECTIONS
translates to and from these protocols via a loadable driver specific to that instrument. The syntax is simple, for
example, following are the commands that start the counter and stop the timer, sent to the instrument from a user
program.
START_COUNTER
n1
n1 is the counter index from 1 to 4.
STOP_TIMER
n1
n1 is the timer index from 1 to 2.
Our C
ONNECTIONS
Programmer’s Toolkit with Microsoft
®
ActiveX
®
Controls has two programming options. For
programmers familiar with Dynamic Linked Libraries (DLLs), it provides DLLs and supplemental Windows applications
programming interfaces that can be called from C, C++, or Visual Basic. For programmers using ActiveX controls, all the
functionality can be accessed more conveniently through ActiveX methods, properties, and events. The ActiveX
capability makes it easy to program ORTEC products from LabVIEW (Version 5.1 or later), Visual C++, and Visual Basic.
Simple example programs are supplied with both programming options.
The ORTEC hardware configuration program, MCB Configuration, is included. MCB Configuration searches the local PC
and network for supported MCBs (and multichannel scalers) and generates a master list of each instrument found,
including the hardware type and the computer node to which it is connected. Also included is an MCB server (one
background process for Windows 7 computers; two background processes for Windows XP) that handles requests
from remote computers for MCB communication. Any data returned as a result of the request is sent through the
network to the request’s originator.
ORTEC and user-written software may be profitably combined. For example, the included MAESTRO
®
MCA Emulation
Software or the Easy NIM front panel emulator can be used to configure the system and perform most of the
interactive functions. The user application can then be used to handle the unique system functions.
1.3.
ABOUT THIS MANUAL
To accommodate the MCB-only and counter/timer-only EASY-NIM modules, this manual discusses the MCB and
counter/timer functions separately. In addition, it includes a section for the full Model 928 that discusses how the two
hardware subcomponents are used together.
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Standard NIM Digital Bus (NIM/488)
, DOE/ER-0457T, U.S. NIM committee, May 1990; Standard NIM Instrumentation System,
NTIS, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, Virginia 22161.
