WA4SWJ wrote:Shannon,
Now that I'm safely in Florida I'm anxious to get my Boonton 1121 working. Any suggestions for a PC to GPIB card of some kind?
Congrats on your move and new title, Ed!
Tom asked me about a USB-to-GPIB unit he saw on Ebay awhile back. I discounted it then, but am changing my mind. The problem is that supporting an ISA card in this day and age is almost too much trouble. Here is the link via Spark Fun:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc ... cts_id=549
It is really a RS232 driven device using custom drivers from FTDI, the maker of the chip. I've actually used this chip at work and it works fine. The catch is that the Boonton code needs to be edited for compatibility. For example, right now the code directly calls commands from the National Instruments DLL for a write or read. This Spark Fun unit would be writing or reading through a virtual COM port.
This shouldn't be too difficult to re-code, but there might be another snafu with the unit that I don't know about. I'm going to purchase one of these in the next few weeks and give it a shot. Until then, I would just start getting together a couple BNC-to-alligator/clip cables, a couple good BNC-to-BNC cables, and maybe a female BNC-to-male RCA. You can do some measurements via the front panel which will give you a good feel for the unit.
For those that don't have a prob with ISA, then get this one:
AT-GPIB/TNT (Plug & Play)
I use the AT-GPIB/TNT that is not PNP, and I have to be careful with IRQ conflicts ala the old days. Also, there are plenty of junk GPIB cards, so be careful. There's even some old NI ISA cards that have PCI in the name - very confusing.
Shannon