4. Multicore Support (including Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo etc.)
 

Question: How do I print HTBasic Plus Widgets, or Dialogs?

Answer:

To perform a DUMP GRAPHICS when displaying HTBasc BPLUS widgets or Dialogs you used to have to start HTBasic with the -gr command switch:

HTBWIN.EXE -gr off

A new command has been added to allow DUMP GRAPHICS of a BASIC Plus Widget:

CONFIGURE SYSTEM ("DUMP;PLUS")
 

Question: I have problems with HTBasic on my Intel Dual 2 Core PC, what can I do?

Answer:

TransEra has created a new pre-release version 9.5 pr-mq which fixes are known problems on Multicore PC platforms. Please contact our technical support in order to obtain a copy of this updated version.

1. Installing earlier 6.x release with a 7.0 serial number

2. Placing alpha over graphics while in SEPARATE ALPHA mode

3. Printing to network printer

4. Driver used to DUMP GRAPHICS or DUMP ALPHA

5. Updated PS-DUMP driver when using GRAY option

6. Currently supported GPIB drivers

7. Currently supported GPIO driver

8. Using non-GUI version of HTBasic

9. HTBasic 7.1 for Windows and BASIC Plus

10. Disabling Program Modified Dialog Box

11. Changing the printer in the Printer Setup dialog box

12. Using LIF Utilities under Windows NT

13. Support for BASIC DDE client

Question 1:

Installing earlier 6.x release with a 7.0 serial number

Answer:

If you are using the 7.0 CD to install the earlier release of 6.0, there is a problem with the published serial number. Please contact TransEra or your Distributor to get a correct serial number.

Question 2:

Placing alpha over graphics while in SEPARATE ALPHA mode

Answer:

When placing alpha on top of previously drawn graphics while in SEPARATE ALPHA mode, the alpha will first black out the line where it is to place the text prior to placing the text. This has been repaired in our newest HTBasic 7.1 for Windows version.

Question 3:

Printing to network printer

Answer:

Under Windows 95, it is not possible to print to the default Windows printer unless it is connected directly to a physical port or mapped to a network port. If your printer is mapped only to a network printer without being assigned a port number, error 401 will occur. This has been repaired in our newest HTBasic 7.1 for Windows version.

Question 4:

Driver used to DUMP GRAPHICS or DUMP ALPHA

Answer:

Only the WIN-DUMP driver responds correctly to the DUMP GRAPHICS and DUMP ALPHA commands while in SEPARATE ALPHA mode. All other drivers are available for update for proper functionality. At release time the drivers only dumped mixed ALPHA and GRAPHICS. This has been repaired in our newest HTBasic 7.1 for Windows version.

Question 5:

Updated PS-DUMP driver when using GRAY option

Answer:

With alpha and graphics merged and the GRAY option specified in the CONFIGURE DUMP statement of the PS-DUMP driver, the colors on the screen are not properly gray-scaled by the printer. This has been repaired in our newest HTBasic 7.1 for Windows version.

Question 6:

Currently supported GPIB drivers

Answer:

GPIBNI

Supports all National Instruments 488.2 driven GPIB cards. This includes all NI GPIB cards that National supports under the respective operating systems. For example the PCII/IIA card is not supported under NT/2000 at all. However, for Windows 95/98 the card is supported if it is 488.2 compliant

This driver also supports all other "NI clone" GPIB boards.

To load a NI PCII/IIA, or other NAT488.2 compatible GPIB board, it is first necessary to install and configure the NI board with the NI software available here for Windows 95/98 or here for Windows NT/2000. Once the board is installed and configured with the National Instruments' software, it is then possible to load the GPIBNI driver in HTBasic. The load bin statement is as follows:

LOAD BIN "GPIBNI;DEV XXX"

where XXX is the device name specified in the NI configuration utility.

To determine if your PCII/IIA board is 488.2 compatible ,check the assembly number on the board. If it reads something like ASSY 180XXX, then the board is a 488.1 compliant one. National Instruments has DOS-only (no Windows) support for 488.1 cards. Only 488.2 (ASSY 181XXX) boards are supported in Windows.

For the IOTech GPIB boards. If your IOTech IEEE-488 board has a serial number higher than #036731, then your card may be run with with the GPIBNI driver by using a special driver provided by IOTech. IOTech may be contacted at: http://www.iotech.com

HPIBS

This driver supports all HP SICL compatible GPIB boards. These boards include the HP SICL cards, the TransEra Model 900 board under Windows NT and Windows 2000, the TAMS PCI GPIB board under Windows NT, and the Ines ISA, PCI, cPCI, and PCMCIA boards. For details on loading this card see the What's New in 7.0 Manual page 4-4.

GPIB

This driver is not designed for use with Windows NT or Windows 2000. It supports the TransEra Model 900 GPIB and compatible boards. This would include the Ziatech and some older National Instruments boards that are not supported by the NI 488.2 software such as the PC3 cards.

For a full list of compatible GPIB boards, see our Compatibility Table.

Question 7:

Currently supported GPIO driver

Answer:

GPIOS & GPIO

The HP E2075 GPIO card, and the TAMS 60622 GPIO cards are supported with the GPIOS driver. The TransEra model 600 card is supported by the GPIO driver under Windows 95 & 98 only..

Question 8:

Using non-GUI version of HTBasic

Answer:

In addition to the new GUI (Graphics User Interface) look and feel of version 7.1, we have also provided a version of 7.1 that is familiar to users of earlier versions of HTBasic. This executable is installed along with your full GUI version. It is called HTBwin.bak. By renaming this executable to HTBwin2.exe you will have full access to the older look and feel. It contains all fixes and enhancements that the GUI version does except the GUI, and the SEPARATE ALPHA functionality.

Question 9:

HTBasic 7.1 for Windows and BASIC Plus

Answer:

At the current time there is limited BASIC Plus support for the 7.1 release. To use BASIC Plus, it is required that you use the Non-GUI version as mentioned in item 3 above.

Question 10:

Disabling Program Modified Dialog Box

Answer:

By default the Program Modified Dialog Box is enabled. To disable this dialog box insert the following line into your AUTOST:

CONTROL KBD,100;0

Future releases of the software will still have this enabled by default, however programmatic program changes will not cause this dialog box to appear.

Question 11:

Changing the printer in the Printer Setup dialog box

Answer:

Changing the printer in the Printer Setup dialog box from within HTBasic will not change the default Windows printer; ISC 10 will remain assigned to your default Windows printer.

Question 12:

Using LIF Utilities under Windows NT or Windows 2000

Answer:

LIF utilities (HPCOPY, HPCAT, and HPPURGE) remain non functional under Windows NT/2000. Under DOS, or Windows 3.x, or 95/98 they are fully functional. If you have an NT machine, it is recommended that you either 1) boot to previous version of DOS to perform the necessary transfer; 2) Boot to a DOS boot disk and perform the necessary transfer; or 3) Purchase EZTransfer from AccuMeasure that will allow you to transfer data over the GPIB bus.

Question 13:

Support for BASIC DDE client

Answer:

Support for the BASIC DDE client has been added. For support and details, see our MS Office Interface for HTBasic web pages.

FAQ for Previous Versions

-1. Set up and use of the SERIAL interface

-2. Launching the DOS version of HTBasic from a Windows® icon

-3. Running under Windows 95 & Windows NT

-4. Loading GPIB drivers

-5. "Abnormal Program Termination", or "Basic Stack Bad" errors

-6. Sending special control (escape) sequences to a printer in HTBasic for Windows®

-7. Year 2000 and HTBasic

-8. DOS Error 21

-9. HTBasic for DOS and Windows NT incompatibilities

10. Using escape codes with a printer

11. Colors are not inverted when dumping graphics to the printer

12. Running a program created in an old version of HTBasic in a newer version of HTBasic

13. Reading a data file into a spreadsheet program

14. Starting a program automatically when launching HTBasic

Question 1:

Set up and use of the SERIAL interface

Answer:

The major problems that we see with serial communications in HTBasic are the following:

• Setting Up

• Configuring

• Handshaking

SETTING UP:

The most common problem with the setup of the serial drivers is a discrepancy between the parameters given in the LOAD BIN statement, and the actual setup of the computer. Perhaps one of the most confusing things about the LOAD BIN "SERIAL" statement, is that each instance attempts to load two drivers.

By default, specifying LOAD BIN "SERIAL" with no parameters causes HTBasic to attempt to load drivers for COM1 and COM2. The default settings for these are BASE 3F8 INT 4 ISC 9 and BASE 2F8 INT 3 ISC 11, respectively. If these are indeed the settings for COM1 and COM2 HTBasic will attempt to load the serial drivers for both. If the defaults are different, or you need to load drivers for other COM ports, you must specify these options in the LOAD BIN statement. The examples below show how to load drivers for extended ports COM5 and COM6. Note, we assume COM5 is in use by another application.

For DOS:

LOAD BIN "SERIAL;DR 1 DISABLE DR 2 BASE 31F INT 3 ISC 20"

For Windows®:

LOAD BIN "SERIAL;DR 1 DISABLE DR 2 DEVICE COM6"

IF each of the following is true. . .

• The parameters in the LOAD BIN statement match the settings of the COM ports
  

• There is no conflict of interrupts with other peripheral hardware
  
• No other applications have loaded drivers for the COM ports

THEN
you should have not trouble loading the HTBasic serial drivers.

INITIAL CONFIGURATION:

Another source of headache with serial communications is caused when the configuration of the PC does not match the configuration of the peripheral component. The common culprits here are the baud rate, the character frame and handshaking. (The latter is explained in the next section).

To save time and trouble, determine the baud rate and character frame (parity, stop bits, etc.) of the peripheral device.
Use the CONTROL ISC ,3;Baud statement in HTBasic to set the baud rate to the value Baud for the COM port whose Interface Select Code is the value of ISC .

Use the CONTROL ISC ,4;Frame statement in HTBasic to set the character frame to the value Frame for the COM port whose Interface Select Code is the value of ISC .

If these values match the baud rate and character frame of the peripheral, you will be able to communicate between HTBasic and the peripheral device.

SERIAL HANDSHAKING:

When it comes to serial communications, by far the largest number of question can be traced to the issue of handshaking.

There are two basic forms of handshaking, software and hardware. The main purpose of either of these is to control data flow in relation to the status of the buffer. If the receive buffer on the device or the PC is approaching its limit, handshaking is used to suspend the transmission of data from the other end.

It is very important that you know which kind of handshaking the peripheral device is expecting, and then use the appropriate CONTROL statements to configure HTBasic to use the same kind. The two most important control registers in this regard are 5 and 12. Refer to the USERS GUIDE for further information on the values to write to these registers.
If HTBasic is configured for one kind of handshaking, and the connected device is configured to another, once the receive buffer is filled, HTBasic will appear to hang as it waits for the -buffer to be emptied. During this time, the peripheral device will most likely continue to transmit, and information will be lost.

Question 2:

Launching the DOS version of HTBasic from a Windows® icon

Answer:

If you have HTBasic for DOS version 4.3 or above you will find that the PHARLAP.386 file is now included on the distribution diskettes or you can find it in the DOWNLOAD section of our website. In the Legacy Version simply choose to install the DOS version from Windows, and the following steps are done for you. With this new file HTBasic for DOS can be launched from within Windows®. The README.1ST file (also included on the diskettes) contains the following instructions for enabling this feature:

RUNNING UNDER WINDOWS

The following actions are required to run HTBasic under Windows 3.1 or Windows 95.

1. Copy the PHARLAP.386 file from the HTBasic directory to your windows directory.
2. Edit your SYSTEM.INI file and add the following line in the [386Enh] section:

device=pharlap.386

Restart Windows and you are ready to assign an icon to HTBasic for DOS!

Question 3:

Running under Windows 95/98 & Windows NT or Windows 2000

Answer:

Sure! The latest HTBasic versions were built with Windows 95/98 and Windows NT and Windows 2000 in mind. HTBasic for Windows runs under Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. Added features for use especially with 32-bit Windows are already included.

For example: Using the CONFIGURE LONGFILENAMES ON command HTBasic is ready to use and display the long filenames supported by 32-bit Windows.

Included with the Windows version of HTBasic is a secondary SERIAL driver, which utilizes the 32 bit serial interface of the new Windows API. By using the following statement to load the SERIAL drivers you are ready to use the "especially for 32-bit"" serial interface: LOAD BIN "SERIAL32"

Question 4:

Loading GPIB drivers

Answer:

This is the most common error returned when using the LOAD BIN statement to load HTBasic drivers. Fortunately, the cause of the error is almost always the same: disagreement between driver parameters and actual card settings.

Nine times out of ten , when fielding this call, the answer is found in a discrepancy between the BASE and INT values loaded in the LOAD BIN statement, and the BASE and INT values setup on the card (jumper switches or software settings).

Before you lose any sleep over " Error 167," complete the following checklist:

1. Determine the base address setting and interrupt setting on the card itself.
2. Make sure that these values agree with those specified in the LOAD BIN statement.

If the value of the jumper switches on the card were set to a base address of 2B8 and an interrupt of 2, you would need to assure that the LOAD BIN statement agrees. For example:

LOAD BIN "GPIB;BOARD BASE 2B8 INT 2"

Make sure that no other hardware devices in your computer are set to use this same interrupt.

(Note: On most new motherboards, Interrupt 2 is taken by the motherboards. Other major culprits are network cards and video cards)

Question 5:

"Abnormal Program Termination", or "Basic Stack Bad" errors

Answer:

When storing HTBasic program files in the PROG file type, there is more information in the file than the simple text entered from the HTBasic editor. As a result, information is saved from one session to another in a PROG file, which is not saved with an ASCII file.

From time to time an unexpected instruction will lead to corruption of the expected PROG file type, and it has been know to cause Abnormal Termination, or problems with stack values.

Fortunately, the remedy is simple. To clean up these files, simply LOAD the problematic file using the LOAD" filename" command. Next, SAVE the file to a temporary filename using the HTBasic SAVE" tempfilename" command. Now, use the GET" tempfilename" command to retrieve the file that was just saved in the ASCII format. Finally, use the RE-STORE " filename" command to return the file to a newly built PROG file.

Question 6:

Sending special control (escape) sequences to a printer in HTBasic for Windows®

Answer:

Many people like to use special escape characters to obtain low-level control of the printer configuration. Under the DOS version this was accomplished using an OUTPUT 10,... statement. Under the Windows® version of HTBasic print jobs are sent through the Print Manager which interprets the escape sequences as normal text. For version 5.2 and newer, ISC 26 has been enabled and is a direct route to the parallel port or what ever is mapped to the parallel port. For older versions of HTBasic, the following example demonstrates how to get around this problem.

All of the text following a line number should appear on one line.

10    ASSIGN @P TO "LPT1";FORMAT ON 
20    OUTPUT @P;CHR$(27)&"E"&CHR$(27)&"%1B"&CHR$(27)&"&l1O"; !Esc Sequences 
30    PLOTTER IS "LPT1","HPGL",2,268,0,190 
40    MOVE 50,50 
50    LABEL "THIS IS A TEST" 
60    POLYGON 30,30,30 
70    ! Sets the printer back to regular mode 
80    OUTPUT @P;CHR$(27)&"E"&CHR$(27)&"%1A"&CHR$(27)&"&l0O"; !Esc Sequences 
90    ASSIGN @P TO * 
100   PLOTTER IS CRT,"INTERNAL" 
110   END

This example circumvents the problem by sending all output to the special DOS file descriptor "LPT1" rather than via the Windows® Print Manager.

Question 7:

Year 2000 and HTBasic

Answer:

TransEra's HTBasic has been tested and found Y2K compliant in the following areas:

1. HTBasic processes date data accurately from, into, and between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, (including, but not limited to calculating, comparing and sequencing dates).
2. HTBasic will accurately calculate the Year 2000 as a leap year.
3. HTBasic is Y2K compliant when used in accordance with its product documentation.
4. HTBasic is Y2K compliant provided all other products used in combination with HTBasic properly exchange data with it.
5. TransEra's hardware (i.e. GPIB and GPIO cards) does not have a BIOS; therefore, all TransEra's hardware has been tested and is Y2K compliant.

TransEra's High Tech Basic (HTBasic) is a programming language designed primarily for data acquisition and instrument control. In calculating and storing dates in HTBasic, the actual date is provided by the BIOS. The date is converted to the number of seconds since the start of the Julian Period in 4713 BC. Provided the BIOS is Y2K compliant, HTBasic will remain unaffected by any century changes. The TIMEDATE function in HTBasic does not hold the time/date itself; HTBasic makes system calls to get, or set, the time and/or date directly from the operating system.

Like any other programming language, HTBasic does not prevent a programmer from programming dates incorrectly. Therefore HTBasic is Y2K compliant, but specific programs written with HTBasic may not be.

Question 8:

DOS Error 21

Answer:

DOS error 21 results from a combination of mixed mode RAM and older versions of WIN32s, which allows 32-bit applications to run on 16-bit Operating Systems such as Windows 3.x. Version 6.1 has this update included in its install. An update of the Win32s is also available for download from our ftp site on our download page.

Question 9:

HTBasic for DOS and Windows NT and Windows 2000 incompatibilities

Answer:

Due to increased memory protection in Windows NT and Windows 2000, HTBasic for DOS will not be supported under this Operating System. If you require the use of HTBasic under the NT/2000 OS, it is suggested to use HTBasic for Windows.

Question 10:

Using escape codes with a printer

Answer:

In the Windows version of HTBasic, extensive use of the Print manager makes printing simpler and compatible with a wider range of printers. However the print manger currently ignores all Escape characters (commonly used for changing margins, fonts, and adding enhancements directly to your print output). In version 5.2 the addition of ISC 26 was introduced. With this release and all newer releases this ISC provides a direct path to LPT ports. By default this is set to LPT1. This will (Use 26 instead of 10)

Question 11:

Colors are not inverted when dumping graphics to the printer

Answer:

In HTBasic for Windows, it is necessary to use 256 colors or less for your Windows color pallet setting. Setting this to higher settings will cause the DUMP GRAPHICS command to not invert, as well, GSTORE and GLOAD commands will give memory overflow errors. If you do not wish to change this setting, 32-bit windows users can use the DirectX enabled version of HTBasic for Windows. This mode will automatically switch your color pallet into 256 color mode when launching HTBasic.

Question 12:

Running a program created in an old version of HTBasic in a newer version of HTBasic.

Answer:

Different revisions of HTBasic have different PROG types. Each PROG type is unique and can only be LOADed by a revision that supports that PROG type. For example I have a file that I STOREd using version 4.1. This file will have a revision 4 PROG type. To open it in a version that supports version 5 PROG types, I must convert the file to ASCII by LOADing it into the older version, then using the SAVE command to save it out. Then I can open the newer version of HTBasic where I use the GET command to bring it into memory.

Then using the STORE command I can store it as a version 5 PROG type. Version 5.0 through version 6.1 for both DOS and Windows are all version 5 PROG types. Typical divisions in PROG type occur with major revision numbers in HTBasic. For example revision 3.x will have a version 3 PROG type. Revision 4 has version 4 PROG type etc.

Question 13:

Reading a data file into a spreadsheet program

Answer:

See Application Note: Using Data Produced by HTBasic Programs in Popular Spreadsheet Programs

Question 14:

Starting a program automatically when launching HTBasic

Answer:

Yes, the -ALT switch can be used to run an AUTOST program other than the one named "AUTOST" in the current directory. For example, the following statement will start HTBasic running and will use a file named STARTUP.BAS in the root directory of drive C, regardless of what the current directory is:

C> HTBWin -ALT C:\STARTUP.BAS

To start HTBasic without running any files, direct the -ALT switch to a nonexistent file name for example:

C> HTBWin -ALT junk