Chapter 1
Introduction
©
National Instruments Corporation
1-5
PCI-Based MXI-2 Interfaces for Windows 2000/NT/Me/98
standard, which is a common interface to many types of instruments (such
as VXI, GPIB, PXI, Serial, TCP/IP, etc.). NI-VXI is optimized for use
through NI-VISA, and we recommend using NI-VISA to develop all new
VXI/VME applications.
To comply with VXI
plug&play
specifications, a VXI controller must
provide the VISA I/O driver library standardized by VXI
plug&play
. VISA
ensures that your controller can run all VXI
plug&play
-compatible software
now and in the future.
The NI-VISA software in this kit is compatible with the WIN95/GWIN95
and WINNT/GWINNT frameworks. With NI-VISA installed on your
computer, you can run any VXI
plug&play
software compatible with these
frameworks. This includes instrument drivers and executable soft front
panel software included with VXI
plug&play
-compatible instruments from
a variety of vendors.
Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX) helps you configure your
VXI system. Use MAX to view your entire T&M system and configure
various components, whether they are VXI, GPIB, PXI, TCP/IP,
GPIB-VXI, or Serial devices. This utility not only takes the place of the
NI-VXI T&M Explorer utility, but it also adopts the functionality of the
NI-DAQ Configuration utility so you can configure National Instruments
DAQ products. You can also add VME devices to your system easily with
MAX and view them on a screen display along with the rest of your system.
MAX also features various options for running Resman. Besides executing
Resman to configure your instruments, you can use MAX to start resource
manager operations, or use MAX to configure Resman to run automatically
at startup.
NI Spy tracks the calls your application makes to National Instruments
T&M drivers, including NI-VXI, NI-VISA, and NI-488.2. NI Spy helps
you debug your application by clearly highlighting the functions that return
errors. You can let NI Spy keep a log of your program’s calls to these
drivers so that you can check for errors at your convenience.
National Instruments Application Software
In addition to the NI-VXI software, you can use the National Instruments
LabVIEW and Measurement Studio application programs and instrument
drivers to ease your programming tasks. These standardized programs
match the modular virtual instrument capability of VXI and can reduce
your VXI/VME software development time. These programs are fully
VXI
plug&play
compliant and feature extensive libraries of VXI
