twb@tropix.UUCP (Thomas W. Banister) (08/25/89)
When I read the news this morning I was amazed to see a bunch of postings regarding my request for IEEE488/SysV/VME success stories. I posted that a couple of months ago and have been feeling guilty about not acknowledging the e-mail responses I got. It's very interesting how stuff propagates around on USENET. Anyways, in summary: Most e-mailers and posters recommended National Instruments. After implementing GPIB communications on a PC and reading manuals and catalogs I believe National Instruments is the *only* viable source for GPIB products. One person mentioned the Motorola MVME300, we have one of those in house on a trial basis, more on that later. I personally want to order the National Instruments 1014 board but here's the rub. (which I didn't stress enough in my original posting) We using Unix *SysV* and *shared memory*. This throws a real kink in porting drivers, especially since none of us here are driver gurus. And National Instruments doesn't currently sell a driver for SysV. An Alan Biocca mentioned the Motorola MVME300 and the "secret, no charge, ported and bug fixed" driver for the board. I hope you have a lot better luck than we've had so far. I'll say no more until we know why it doesn't work and whether it's the board or the driver. There is no sense in libeling anyone. The bottom line is we can't purchase our way out of this one. It's time to do some driver hacking, ahem, I mean some engineering of driver software. Fortunately for me this project has been put on the back burner for a while. Thanks all, Tom Banister ...!rochester!tropix!twb
edm@nwnexus.WA.COM (Ed Morin) (09/06/89)
We just received some information from an outfit called Themis Computer and they have various VME board products including a System V 68020 based SBC *and* an IEEE-488 controller. I don't know if they have a Unix driver though. Anyway, folks interested in a National Instruments alternative (as we are) might like to contact Themis at: Themis Computer 6681 Owens Drive Pleasanton, CA 94566 (415) 734-0870 FAX: (415) 734-0873 -- Ed Morin Northwest Nexus Inc. "Unix Public Access for the Masses!" edm@nwnexus.WA.COM
mic@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Mic Lacey) (09/06/89)
All of the Hewlett Packard workstations have an HP-IB port on them which, if I understand correct is an IEEE 488 port, but has a few extra features for HP hardware. HP also offers an "VME bus interface" which allows you to VME cards. -Mic