GPIB board drivers for Solaris

[David Kirkby]

Are there any freely available GPIB board drivers for Solaris using a
National Instruments PCI based GPIB board?

They are on the National Instruments web site

http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/websearch/7DF09987E09E372F86256DD500004715?opendocument&node=132060_US

but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!

It seems I would need part# 778027-01.

Just wondering if anyone is aware of any other solutions? I only want
this for home use, so are not going to spend that sort of money on drivers.

Running Solaris 9 here.

Dr. David Kirkby

 

[David Kirkby]

David Kirkby wrote:

Are there any freely available GPIB board drivers for Solaris using a
National Instruments PCI based GPIB board?

They are on the National Instruments web site

http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/websearch/7DF09987E09E372F86256DD500004715?opendocument&node=132060_US


but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!

It seems I would need part# 778027-01.

I should have added I want this for Solaris 9 SPARC not on x86,

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 23:38:46 +0100, David Kirkby
<REMOVE-david.kirkby@onetel.net> wrote:

Are there any freely available GPIB board drivers for Solaris using a
National Instruments PCI based GPIB board?

They are on the National Instruments web site

http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/websearch/7DF09987E09E372F86256DD500004715?opendocument&node=132060_US

but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!

It seems I would need part# 778027-01.

Just wondering if anyone is aware of any other solutions? I only want
this for home use, so are not going to spend that sort of money on drivers.

Running Solaris 9 here.

Dr. David Kirkby

RS-232 to GPIB boxes show up on ebay, usually cheap.

John

 

[Dave]

John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 23:38:46 +0100, David Kirkby
REMOVE-david.kirkby@onetel.net> wrote:


Are there any freely available GPIB board drivers for Solaris using a
National Instruments PCI based GPIB board?

They are on the National Instruments web site

http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/websearch/7DF09987E09E372F86256DD500004715?opendocument&node=132060_US

but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!

It seems I would need part# 778027-01.

Just wondering if anyone is aware of any other solutions? I only want
this for home use, so are not going to spend that sort of money on drivers.

Running Solaris 9 here.

Dr. David Kirkby




RS-232 to GPIB boxes show up on ebay, usually cheap.

John

Thanks for that. I don't need fast speed, so serial should do, but I'd
rather a direct GPIB solution if I can find one, but I am not going to
pay Ł395 for drivers. That seems to be taking the Mic a bit.

 

[Frithiof Andreas Jensen]

"David Kirkby" <REMOVE-david.kirkby@onetel.net> wrote in message
news:426ec2f6@212.67.96.135...

but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!

There is a reason for avoiding Solaris whenever possible unless forced by
corporate rulez - in which case corporate can bloody well pay up!

 

[Chris Eilbeck]

David Kirkby <REMOVE-david.kirkby@onetel.net> writes:

David Kirkby wrote:
Are there any freely available GPIB board drivers for Solaris using
a National Instruments PCI based GPIB board?
They are on the National Instruments web site
http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/websearch/7DF09987E09E372F86256DD500004715?opendocument&node=132060_US
but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!
It seems I would need part# 778027-01.

I should have added I want this for Solaris 9 SPARC not on x86,

Just use a crappy old PC, bung it on your network and run the
linux-gpib drivers on it. I wouldn't pay extra for drivers either.

Chris
--
Chris Eilbeck
MARS Flight Crew http://www.mars.org.uk/
UKRA #1108 Level 2 UYB
Tripoli UK Member #9527 LSMR

 

[Casper H.S. Dik]

"Frithiof Andreas Jensen" <frithiof.jensen@die_spammer_die.ericsson.com> writes:

"David Kirkby" <REMOVE-david.kirkby@onetel.net> wrote in message
news:426ec2f6@212.67.96.135...
but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!

There is a reason for avoiding Solaris whenever possible unless forced by
corporate rulez - in which case corporate can bloody well pay up!

Well, it's the first time I've ever seen a hardware company charge
extra for the drivers.

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

 

[Dave]

Frithiof Andreas Jensen wrote:

"David Kirkby" <REMOVE-david.kirkby@onetel.net> wrote in message
news:426ec2f6@212.67.96.135...

but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!


There is a reason for avoiding Solaris whenever possible unless forced by
corporate rulez - in which case corporate can bloody well pay up!


I quite like Solaris so that in itself is no reason to "avoiding Solaris

whenever possible". I might be a case to not use Solaris in this
instance, but that is a very different issue.

 

[Dave]

Casper H.S. Dik wrote:

"Frithiof Andreas Jensen" <frithiof.jensen@die_spammer_die.ericsson.com> writes:



"David Kirkby" <REMOVE-david.kirkby@onetel.net> wrote in message
news:426ec2f6@212.67.96.135...

but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!


There is a reason for avoiding Solaris whenever possible unless forced by
corporate rulez - in which case corporate can bloody well pay up!


Well, it's the first time I've ever seen a hardware company charge
extra for the drivers.

Casper

I don't think this is totally unknown in the Pee Cee world, as I think
some graphics cards manufactuers have been known to make a nominal
charge for Linux drivers, but a quick google could not find evidence of
this.

But NI are taking the **** a bit. This is not a "nominal charge" but
more than the cost of the hardware, as the NI card, with Windoze XP
drivers is Ł390. You can possibly buy the card with only Solaris drivers
for less than Ł390+Ł395=Ł785, but I have not checked that.

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Dave <nospam@nowhere.com> wrote
(in <426f8412@212.67.96.135&gt about 'GPIB board drivers for Solaris', on
Wed, 27 Apr 2005:

But NI are taking the **** a bit. This is not a "nominal charge" but
more than the cost of the hardware, as the NI card, with Windoze XP
drivers is Ł390. You can possibly buy the card with only Solaris
drivers for less than Ł390+Ł395=Ł785, but I have not checked that.

Do you think some marketroid goofed and the Ł395 price is for card +
driver? It might be worth asking, if you can find an intelligent human
to speak to, however improbable that is.

I recall one UK company had a VCR listed for Ł2365 for three days before
someone noticed.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Frithiof Andreas Jensen]

"Dave" <nospam@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:426f7e22@212.67.96.135...

I quite like Solaris so that in itself is no reason to "avoiding Solaris
whenever possible". I might be a case to not use Solaris in this
instance, but that is a very different issue.

heh -

I hate Solaris, but OK, that is an irrational grudge from all the way back
from SUNOS and all the known bugs they refused to fix Then "because one
should "upgrade" to Solaris - which at that time did not even have
functional *Tools* - all the better to extract $$$$$$ for the "Support
Contract".

SUN would be nice IF they grew a Brain, but they are still too moneyed for
that ;-)

 

[Dave]

John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Dave <nospam@nowhere.com> wrote
(in <426f8412@212.67.96.135&gt about 'GPIB board drivers for Solaris', on
Wed, 27 Apr 2005:

But NI are taking the **** a bit. This is not a "nominal charge" but
more than the cost of the hardware, as the NI card, with Windoze XP
drivers is Ł390. You can possibly buy the card with only Solaris
drivers for less than Ł390+Ł395=Ł785, but I have not checked that.



Do you think some marketroid goofed and the Ł395 price is for card +
driver?

No, it is definitely not an error.

It might be worth asking, if you can find an intelligent human
to speak to, however improbable that is.

I just phoned NI to confirm it and did get an intelligent human being -
I wish it was the same with my bank!!

I was quoted Ł790 for the GPIB board for Solaris - part number is
777462-01.

Interestingly, you can buy the Windoze card and Solaris drivers for a
total of Ł785, which is Ł5 less than you can buy the Solaris card with
Solaris drivers!

I'm 99.9% sure they are the same physical card. Data at
http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/1233

Oh, and by the way, an update from the previous version of the driver is
Ł235.

NI let you submit instrument drivers for Labview which is very generous
of them. I doubt they pay Ł395 for a driver - in fact, I doubt they pay
you at all, although I can't confirm that.

Does anyone know if you need a GPIB driver if you have Labview? We have
a license at work for Labview, on all platforms including Solaris. I
wonder if a GPIB driver would be needed then, or if Labview would
install its own.

 

[Stuart Biggar]

Casper H.S. Dik wrote:

"Frithiof Andreas Jensen" <frithiof.jensen@die_spammer_die.ericsson.com> writes:



"David Kirkby" <REMOVE-david.kirkby@onetel.net> wrote in message
news:426ec2f6@212.67.96.135...

but are not free - in fact, the drivers at Ł395 are slightly more
expensive than the card itself!!


There is a reason for avoiding Solaris whenever possible unless forced by
corporate rulez - in which case corporate can bloody well pay up!


Well, it's the first time I've ever seen a hardware company charge
extra for the drivers.

Casper

Casper,

NI provides drivers for Windows and Linux and OS/X for free and
charges for Solaris (SPARC only) and a couple of other UNIX variants.

We use some of the NI GPIB-Ethernet devices in our optics lab.
Our software runs on SPARCs and hardware/software drivers have been
good under Solaris without the "fun" bluescreen crashes with Windows
(NT and later 2000) using the same software (Windows drivers from NI).
Later Windows drivers appear better (but not perfect). So maybe you
get what you pay for

Software stability is useful when you are running expensive and
very hard to replace hardware (NIST calibrated lamps, etc).

I would like to see Sun lobby NI for support of X86 Solaris for at
least their PCI-GPIB boards and the GPIB-Enet (Ethernet to GPIB)
boxes. I've made telephone and written requests without even an
answer ...

Stuart

 

[Richard L. Hamilton]

In article <d4o6m1$hp0$1@newstree.wise.edt.ericsson.se>,
"Frithiof Andreas Jensen" <frithiof.jensen@die_spammer_die.ericsson.com> writes:

"Dave" <nospam@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:426f7e22@212.67.96.135...

I quite like Solaris so that in itself is no reason to "avoiding Solaris
whenever possible". I might be a case to not use Solaris in this
instance, but that is a very different issue.

heh -

I hate Solaris, but OK, that is an irrational grudge from all the way back
from SUNOS and all the known bugs they refused to fix Then "because one
should "upgrade" to Solaris - which at that time did not even have
functional *Tools* - all the better to extract $$$$$$ for the "Support
Contract".

SUN would be nice IF they grew a Brain, but they are still too moneyed for
that ;-)

I wonder what part of the world you live in, that a company doesn't need
to make money to stay in business. Not that Sun has been doing so well
in that regard lately...

--
mailto:rlhamil@smart.net http://www.smart.net/~rlhamil

Lasik/PRK theme music:
"In the Hall of the Mountain King", from "Peer Gynt"

 

[Clifford Heath]

David Kirkby wrote:

Are there any freely available GPIB board drivers for Solaris using a
National Instruments PCI based GPIB board?

Have you considered modifying the Linux driver for Solaris?

 

[Dave]

Clifford Heath wrote:

David Kirkby wrote:

Are there any freely available GPIB board drivers for Solaris using a
National Instruments PCI based GPIB board?


Have you considered modifying the Linux driver for Solaris?

I doubt I have the knowledge. I know nothing about the inertals of Linux
, or writing Solaris drivers.

Sure a free Solaris driver would be nice, but if there is not one, and I
can't get one free, then I will use an old PC and probably OpenBSD, as
someone has written some code for OpenBSD that controls the instrument I
want, and will be doing with it what I want to do.

 

[Casper H.S. Dik]

Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net> writes:

There will be people kvetching about any decision a company makes,
regardless of what it is. Interesting that you still "have issues" with
Sun's decisions about SunOS 4 -> Solaris migration. Are there other
places in your life where you have trouble "letting go"?

Yeah, I didn't want to go there. Blaming us for not fixing bugs in
SunOS 4.x how many years later?

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Casper H. S. Dik
<Casper.Dik@Sun.COM> wrote (in <4270af27$0$151$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl&gt
about 'GPIB board drivers for Solaris', on Thu, 28 Apr 2005:

Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

Actually very similar to gospel, then.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Frithiof Andreas Jensen]

"Michael Vilain" <vilain@spamcop.net> skrev i en meddelelse
news:vilain-FD2D04.11393927042005@comcast.dca.giganews.com...

In article <d4o6m1$hp0$1@newstree.wise.edt.ericsson.se>,

You obviously never worked for a company that viewed customers as
revenue streams or had to make a profit.

Obviously a very sweeping conclusion based on little information ...

This is fine as far as it goes and gives the MBA's an opportunity to spout
new verbiage on powerpoint and sound reel klever:

However The attitude it goes too far when it goes like this:

Customer: "We think there is a problem with your product, I need these
issues solved",
<long list of reproducible bugs - some with workarounds>
Business: "you need to upgrade to the next version of our $$$Product",
Customer: "fine, but before I do that, I need to know if that will solve
those issues, I just reported to you"
Business: "We can't tell you unless you also buy a Support Contract"..
Customer: "Will I get a refund, If you lie?"
Business: "Could I have your credit card number"
Customer: "Go #¤%& yourself"

Sun's decisions about SunOS 4 -> Solaris migration. Are there other
places in your life where you have trouble "letting go"?

Sure: Borland C++ was ejected on pretty much the same script way back in
Ver. 4.1.
... and never missed.

 

[Richard L. Hamilton]

In article <d4qi35$ra3$1@newstree.wise.edt.ericsson.se>,
"Frithiof Andreas Jensen" <frithiof.jensen@die_spammer_die.ericsson.com> writes:

"Richard L. Hamilton" <Richard.L.Hamilton@mindwarp.smart.net> wrote in
message news:116vuu3brril229@corp.supernews.com...

I wonder what part of the world you live in, that a company doesn't need
to make money to stay in business. Not that Sun has been doing so well
in that regard lately...

Entirely not bad enough, apparantly:

Just a few months ago I wanted to License i.e. Pay Money For the SUN Java
Distributed Management Toolkit, so I emailed the sales support on the
corporate web page, being in Denmark and all one would need the local
representative.

Guess What - No Reply!!

Manking an *extreme* effort and looking up a local subsidiary, phoning the
guys, iterating through many departments whoms responsibility it was not and
finally "being called back".

Well, No Call Back, must not be worth the USD 5000.

No wonder they're not doing well if they won't even take your money...

--
mailto:rlhamil@smart.net http://www.smart.net/~rlhamil

Lasik/PRK theme music:
"In the Hall of the Mountain King", from "Peer Gynt"