Joerg said:
Do you use the Prologix? If so, does it work well to get screen prints
and stuff?
It's $150 a pop (both direct and via Sparkfun).
I bought one of the earlier (bare-board) versions through SparkFun,
and stuffed it into the case from an old Ethernet MAU interface. I've
used it with a Tektronix TDS-series 'scope and a Linux system.
It does work. I haven't tried to use the GPIB-target print-screen
feature, except to try it once and see that the scope did spit out
some data through the interface. I used it more extensively to do
waveform data capture, using a simple C program to send commands and
retrieve the data (something akin to the classic "chat" program). The
equipment lashup was a bit idiosyncratic - an old HP RF signal
generator (with AM or FM modulation turned on), into a Systron-Donner
spectrum analyzer, whose X and Y sweep outputs fed two inputs on a
TDS420A 'scope. I triggered the scope on the rising X input, did a
one-shot capture of the Y input, and (when I got one I liked) used the
Prologix to transfer the curve data to my laptop system, where it was
decimated and fed into OpenOffice.org to create a graph I could add to a
presentation.
The speed is adequate for transfers of this sort. I don't think I'd
try to use this type of GPIB interface for controlling measurements or
devices in situations where there are tight timing requirements. And,
the basic I/O metaphor used by this sort of interface is a lot
higher-level than the GPIB-bus-bit-banging API used by the NI
interface cards and driver libraries... I'm not sure it would be easy
to interface it to LabView.