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National Instruments Corporation
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Introduction
This chapter contains an overview of the NI-FBUS Monitor.
NI-FBUS Monitor Overview
The NI-FBUS Monitor is a Win32 application used to monitor, debug,
and analyze fieldbus data packets. The NI-FBUS Monitor detects
communication on the bus, capturing data packets that are passed between
fieldbus devices. These packets are time-stamped and displayed in real
time in active packet view of the NI-FBUS Monitor. The NI-FBUS
Monitor can display data packets in decoded format or in hexadecimal
format. The NI-FBUS Monitor can filter out unwanted data packets at three
levels: the Fieldbus Data Link layer (FDL), the Fieldbus Messaging
Specification layer (FMS), and by fieldbus addresses.
Windows of the NI-FBUS Monitor
The NI-FBUS Monitor has a Multiple Document Interface (MDI). An MDI
window contains many smaller windows open concurrently that display
data from different sources. These smaller windows are called
filter
windows
.
In the NI-FBUS Monitor, some filter windows might contain
previously-captured data, while other filter windows might capture new
data from different buses or the same bus.
Chapter 3,
, lists and describes the windows of the
NI-FBUS Monitor.
Recommended Minimum Platform
The recommended minimum platform for the NI-FBUS Monitor is a
66 MHz 486 processor with 8 MB of RAM. If you want to run the
NI-FBUS Monitor on a slower platform, refer to the
section of Chapter 4,
