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Common Hints |
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| | Why Instrument drivers? |
| | | Many Rohde & Schwarz customers prefer the graphical programming languages LabVIEW from National Instruments or VEE from Agilent when writing applications for T&M equipment. Quite often, C-based LabWindows/CVI from National Instruments and Visual Basic or Visual C++ from Microsoft/ Borland are also used. |
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| | | As a service, Rohde & Schwarz provides software device drivers free of charge for all these programming languages. All recent T&M equipment is supported, and demo programs are also often available. |
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| | Why a device driver? |
| | | Writing an application can take a lot of time. But writing the application is not the end of the story, since the T&M device must also be driven. That is not so simple with complex equipment, since just the description of the command set may comprise several hundred pages. Applying yourself to this task can be quite time-consuming. Which is why Rohde & Schwarz provides ready-to-use software device drivers for all major interfaces, relieving designers of these efforts to a great extent. You no longer have to search through manuals looking for commands; this has already been done when developing the driver. |
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| | Interfaces and VISA |
| | | The majority of all Rohde & Schwarz device drivers use Virtual Instrument Software Architecture (VISA) to avoid having to provide an individual driver for every device interface. VISA is a standardized software interface library providing input and output functions to communicate with measuring instruments. This standard is defined by the VXIplug&play Systems Alliance, with National Instruments and Hewlett Packard, among others, being represented in this consortium. These I/O functions are usually independent of the device interface used. |
| | | An initialization function in the relevant application program defines which device interface (GPIB, RS-232, LAN, USB) to use. The subsequent program routine is completely independent of the interface used. |
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| | | Most Rohde & Schwarz device drivers require National Instruments VISA revision 2.0.1 or higher. Remote Control of R&S Spectrum and Network Analyzers via LAN For Remote Control of R&S Spectrum and Network Analyzers via LAN National Instruments Visa 2.5 or higher is necessary. |
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| | | See also: |
| | | 1EF47 - Remote Control of R&S Spectrum and Network Analyzers via LAN |
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Tools and Applications |
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LabVIEW |
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| | Improved Help System |
| | | Since June 2003 most of the updated LabVIEW drivers have an improved help system. |
| | | The instrument driver documentation is included in compressed HTML format (Windows CHM help file) and stored together with the LabVIEW driver sources. |
| | | The help for each VI is linked to the section in the "CHM" file describing all the VI features. |
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| | | If there are only drivers or examples for previous versions of LabVIEW available,
please use these drivers or examples. |
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VEE |
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| | Rohde & Schwarz Device Drivers under VEE - Installation and Troubleshooting |
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