Using DAQ Interfaces under HTBasic

USBTMC / USBTMC-488                     HP-IB/GPIB (IEEE488)                National Instruments DAQ
Measurement Computing DAQ          Meilhaus Interfaces                   Other manufacturers

Devices compatible with USBTMC and USBTMC-488 standard

HTBasic 9.4 and newer (May 2006) allows you to use USB devices which are compatible with the USBTMC- bzw. USBTMC-488 standard through the new SICL driver "USBS". Those devices can be controlled via ASCII commands over the USB port. HTBasic programming example Tech Soft offers USB switches from TAMS which can be controlled by HTBasic using simple ENTER/OUTPUT commands.

 

More info about TAMS USB switches:

Installation, Manuals, Software

HPIB / GPIB Interfaces (IEEE488 Standard)

HTBasic supports a great number of HPIB/GPIB interfaces from most of the well known brand names which are compatible with the IEEE488 standard, including Agilent, National Instruments, TransEra, Ines, TAMS, Keithley, IOtech, MetraByte, Ziatech, Plug-In, ICS and others. A list of GPIB interfaces supported by HTBasic can be found here

National Instruments

New: Current NI-DAQmx Driver model (for all current NI DAQ interfaces) All current DAQ Interfaces (e.g. M series PCI-6259) from National Instruments supports the new driver model called "NI-DAQmx". The HTBasic driver "DAQNI" is not compatible with this new driver model. That's why Tech Soft has developed a new product DAQmx for HTBasic which supports all current DAQ interfaces from National Instruments under HTBasic. The driver not only supports simple analog and digital input/output operation but also powerful callback functions and several simultaneous measurements (if the hardware supports it), switches/relays, events and much more. Old: NI-DAQ Driver model (so-called "Traditional DAQ", for older NI interfaces only) DAQ interfaces from National Instruments can be used with the DAQNI driver under HTBasic. However, some time ago National Instruments introduced a new driver model which does not support newer NI hardware. Some useful information about the usage of the DAQNI driver can be found here:   NI-DAQ new installation              Support for installed NI-DAQ interfaces

Measurement Computing

DAQ interfaces from Measurement Computing can be used under HTBasic using the "Universal Library". The Universal Library is an optional add-on from Measurement Computing which provides a language driver DLL (cbw32.dll) for languages like C/C++ which can be used by HTBasic using the DLL Toolkit.

In order to simplify the usage of this driver DLL under HTBasic Tech Soft has developed a special HTBasic library. This HTBasic library is called "Universal Library for HTBasic" and must be purchased separately. Please call us for details.

Meilhaus interfaces

It is quite easy to use interfaces from the German manufacturer Meilhaus Electronic under HTBasic. Meilhaus provides a driver DLL called ME-SDK, these DLL functions can be directly called from within HTBasic programs. A simple HTBasic example which reads analog values using an ME-4000 interface can be found here (requires Acrobat Reader).   In order to simplify the usage of the Meilhaus interfaces we have written a comprehensive HTBasic library which is compatible with the series 3000, 4000 and 8000. If you have any questions or if you need a quotation feel free to contact us.