A versatile interface bus was designed. It allows the control of up to 16 instruments using an IBM XT/AT—or compatible—personal computer. Its main features are simplicity and flexibility to connect it with instruments not necessarily designed to be controlled by a computer, greatly improving their performance.

1.
For example, the IEEE-488 to BINARY/BCD interface from ICS Electronics Corporation (473 Los Coches Street, Milpitas, CA 95035-5422). Roughly speaking, this card provides up to 80 signals for interfacing with BCD/HEX or binary signals to the instrument side, and a GPIB interface to the controller (computer) side. The operation of this card is controlled by an on-board microprocessor running a program stored in a plug-in EPROM. Another example may be the Digital488/32/OEM card, from IOtech, Inc. (25971 Cannon Road, Cleveland, OH 44146). This one provides 32 digital I/O lines programmable as input or output in groups of 8 bits. A microprocessor controls the operation of the GPIB interface and the digital I/O ports. Of course, more complex possibilities are offered by these and other companies.
This content is only available via PDF.
© 1996 American Institute of Physics.
1996
American Institute of Physics
You do not currently have access to this content.