Need help with Agilent 82357A USB / GPIB interface on Linux

[Madhusudan Singh]

Hi

I have installed gpib modules and have the requisite packages installed.
However, gpib_config exits with :

# gpib_config
failed to open device file '/dev/gpib0'
main: No such device or address

The first device above is connected to a USB port on my machine.

So, I modprobe'd the agilent module :

# modprobe agilent_82357a

Now,
# gpib_config
failed to configure board
main: Invalid argument

All this time, the "FAIL" led on the interface is on. But it seems that the
system at least is detecting the existence of the interface board.

Then I downloaded the firmware from linux-gpib.sourceforge.net and uploaded
it to the USB port :

# fxload -D /proc/bus/usb/001/006 -I 82357a_fw.hex

Now all three LEDs come on ("READY", "FAIL" (as before) and "ACCESS").

But, gpib_cofig fails again :

# gpib_config
failed to configure board
main: Invalid argument

What am I missing ?

Second (perhaps getting ahead of myself here), what kind of interface
programming can I reasonably do with this. I am more comfortable with
Fortran 95, but know enough C/BASIC to write a program. For simplicity's
sake, I would prefer a BASIC - IEEE488 library to do my work (Using C in
this case is like using a hammer to open an egg).

However, my search so far has revealed just python or perl or C bindings to
the library. Anyone know of a BASIC binding ?

Our group has a windows version of LabView, and not a Linux version, so I
cannot use that to do my data acq. either.

Thanks.