Re: OpenGToolkit-Developers digest

[John H. <Joh...@sp...>]

Hi Michael and all,

Regarding the OSTE, I am wondering if it is necessary to have any form of =
hardware drivers incorporated into the OSTE at all.  We are using a home =
grown TE which uses VISA (VXI and GPIB) as an "add-on", with calls through =
VI-server.  As a result - the Test Executive itself doesn't need VISA - =
even though the driver add-on does.

By the way - is the OSTE project up and running yet?  I am still interested=
 in helping out.

Regards,

John Howard

>>> mic...@im... 11/08/03 12:20AM >>>
Hi Kevin, others,

I haven't chimed in yet on this VISA issue, but it bears on not only the =
OpenG Toolkit, but very heavily on OSTE as well. I would like to distribute=
 OSTE in executable form as well as the source code, with drivers and code =
modules, but with NI's licensing it might be pretty tough. Open(G)VISA =
would help a lot.  OSTE's grandfather was a military functional test =
system that was very heavily based on VXI and GPIB. Without VISA or the =
older VXI and GPIB drivers we'd be hobbled. Worse, NI could take OSTE, add =
VISA and distribute for less than the $395.00 of an outside license.

Any thoughts?  Lastly, I think I am going to try to find and dust off my =
old LabVIEW 3.1 and 4.1 versions to look back through the old pre-VISA =
driver stuff.

Cheers,
Mike Ashe
OSTE Project Manager

---- Kevin Valentine <k.v...@ve...> wrote:
> On 2003.11.07 17:10 ope...@li...=
 wrote:
> > Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 22:09:20 -0000
> > To: "ope...@li..." <opengtoolkit-devel=
op...@li...>
> > Subject: VISA alternative
> > From: "Jim Kring" <ji...@ji...>
> > Cc: <rol...@ci...>, <chr...@ep...>
> > Reply-To: ope...@li...=20
> >=20
> > If anyone has been reading the info-lv thread on NI VISA licensing, =
you can=20
> > see that there is a huge demand for an open source solution for serial =
and=20
> > parallel port I/O.  NI only allows you to distribute 10 copies of your =
built=20
> > application that uses NI "Driver Software".  After that, they want =
$395 per=20
> > copy!  Sounds like a good openg project to me.  How about OpenGSerp =
and=20
> > OpenGPortIO?  I don't have the background to code up the OS interface =
or=20
> > sharedlib, but I can help with all other aspects of the project.
> >=20
> > -Jim
> >
>=20
> Wow, that is such a cool idea! Why not call it OpenG-VISA? Covers it =
all: GPIB, RS232, ethernet, etc. Haven't seen the info-lv thread (I just =
subscibed). Did a search for open source visa and found one place:
>=20
> http://www.pnpi.spb.ru/~bazhenov/atel/English/whatVISA.htm=20
>=20
> They refer to Open-Visa which they claim to be an open source version of =
visa. There's nothing more on their site regarding this. Googled more on =
open-visa, still nothing.
>=20
> Checked out sourceforge.net found these:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-gpib/=20
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpib-tcl/=20
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpib82357a/=20
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedaq/=20
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/libgpib/=20
>=20
> Am I correct in thinking that we would need these hardware drivers? I'm =
guessing that anything that NI has produced, even though open source, has =
the licensing restrictions you noted above. If we cant' touch anything of =
NI's then that's fine. Looks like there's enough out there for us to get =
started :-)
>=20
> How much work will comforming to the VISA spec involve? Went to the =
vxipnp.org and dl'ed the spec (vpp-4.3).  Suppose I can answer this myself =
as I read through it (285 pages). Perhaps you're right about breaking it =
up into two separate projects, for now.
>=20
> -kevin


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