On 03/ 4/11 02:40 PM, Mike Hansen wrote:
On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 3:05 PM, David Kirkby<david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote:
* Add GPIB support for Linux only - probably the only platform where
this is doable with totally free software. FreeBSD would be possible
if the port was complete. Solaris and OS X would probably need to use
a commerical driver for the GPIB card. As I remarked the other day,
the real issue to get commerical developers to use Sage for instrument
control is having drivers for their instruments. But if the basic GPIB
driver was implemented, then a couple of commands could be written in
Sage to basically send and receive data. Drivers for specific
instruments would essentially require the user to write the code based
on their manual for the instrument. Getting a cheap instrument to test
the basic code on is very easy.
There is already http://pyvisa.sourceforge.net/ which looks like it
provides this.
--Mike
That does look good.
It still relies on a closed source driver though, but if I understand this
correctly, the license should be included if you buy a National Instruments GPIB
board.
I'm a bit puzzled about the driver issue. For example
http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/818/lang/en
says "NI-488.2 version 2.4 for Solaris 2 is not available for download. This
driver software must be purchased bundled with GPIB hardware for Solaris, or by
purchasing the software license individually (778027-01)."
Last time I looked, that driver was over $1000.
But here one can seem to download the VISA driver
http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/229/lang/en
for free.
So potentially pyvisa looks a good solution, as it appears the driver is free.
There is an open-source GPIB driver for Linux and FreeBSD. That has some obvious
advantages.
If pyvisa is as easy as just downloading a VISA driver and creating an
experimental package, it does not seem a lot of work I must admit.
The real work comes in writing software for specific instruments, but it's hard
to make a project of that, unless there was a specific project based around a
specific instrument.
Perhaps one day I'll give this a try.
It would be nice to be able to display some interesting real-time data from
Sage. Perhaps build a "weather station" showing pressure, wind-speed, direction,
humidity, temperature etc. I think the hardware for this is readily available
for USB, though whether one can use ones own software I don't now.
About all I could do is hook up an oscilloscope and measure something like my
mains voltage - nothing really exciting.
--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Dave
--
To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to
sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel
URL: http://www.sagemath.org
