Features

  • Control GPIB devices using cheap Prologix USB-GPIB devices using a “high” level API; some other GPIB backends could be implemented, but I for now only have a Prologix USB bundle…
  • A simple (and incomplete) GPIB plotter is available.
  • Infrastructure to “easily” create description of a specific test equipment.

Known test equipment

For now, the following test equipment have been (partially) implemented:

  • HP 3562A/3563A Dynamic Signal Analyzer
  • Simple GPIB plotter

The devices I should implement soon (well, ASAP):

  • HP 8904A Signal Synthetizer
  • HP 3456A Meter

Tools

For the sake of testing these tools, some example files are proposed in the example directory.

examples/hpgl_plots are examples of HPGL files (resulting from plotting from my HP3562A).

examples/datablocks are examples of HP3562A state, trace and coords datablocks dumped.

The mockup mode of the tools presented below are using these files as data source.

GUI Tools

This is a little app to emulate a GPIB HPGL plotter.

Once started, one can load and display a previously saved HPGL file (using the File menu).

However, the main usage is to use it as a passive device on the GPIB bus (default address is 5, but this may be configured in user preferences). There is a main “On Line” button which can be in out out. When “online”, it will receive plots from every device on the GPIB bus performing plot commands.

There is “test” mode, in which a fake GPIB connection will be used instead of the real one. So is one want to see qgpibplotter in action, just run it with the -m option (mockup). Type

qgpibplotter -h

for details.

This a small GUI application that allow to easily retrieve state, trace and coord datablocks from a HP3562A/HP3563A device (see HP manuals of these devices for details).

There is “test” mode, in which a fake GPIB connection will be used instead of the real one. So is one want to see qgpibplotter in action, just run it with the -m option (mockup). Type

q3562 -h

for details.

Command line tools

Simple GPIB device detector. The computer GPIB device is configured so it is the Controller In Charge on the GPIB bus. It takes a while (several seconds) to run the retection procedure.

Once complete, it will simply display the list of devices found on the bus, with a decription of the device (if available, ie. if it replies to the IDN? command, which is not the case of older devices).

Retrieve a datablock from a HP3562A/HP3563A device. The datablock can be the state, trace or coord datablock, and it can use the ASCII, BINARY or ANSI dumping mode. The resulting data are saved in a file.

These 3 tools can be used to display a datablock previously dumped in a file (using dump_datablock).