README.TXT for Agilent AGE8481A Matrix 

Contents:

1    Introduction

2    VTL/VISA Specific Information
2.1    Instrument Addresses
2.2    Executing the Soft Front Panel without VTL/VISA

3    Using the Agilent AGE8481A Driver in Application Development Environments
3.1    Microsoft Visual C/C++
3.2    Borland C/C++
3.3    Microsoft Visual Basic

4.0  WINDOWS 7 x64 Installation. Additional upgrade needed.

5.0  Obtaining New and Updated VXIplug&play Drivers

6.0  Revision History

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1.   Introduction

The help file included with the Agilent AGE8481A VXIplug&play driver contains
instrument and programming information. This readme file contains
additional information for the Agilent VXIplug&play programmer.

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2.   VTL/VISA Specific Information

The following topics refer to instances when the driver is used with
different versions of VTL.

2.1    Instrument Addresses

When using Agilent VXIplug&play instrument drivers, instrument addresses must
be all uppercase letters. Implementation of the addressing scheme is
vendor specific and some vendors support mixed cases. However, for
maximum portability, the instrument address should use uppercase
characters only.

For example:  use "VXI0::56::INSTR" instead of "vxi0::56::instr"


2.2  Executing the Soft Front Panel without VTL/VISA

The VTL/VISA dynamic link library provides a communication library
between your program and the instrument.  If you receive a message
that VISA.DLL cannot be found when executing the soft front panel
(AGE8481A.exe), VTL/VISA is not installed on your system. To
communicate with the Agilent AGE8481A, you must install VTL/VISA from discs
supplied with your computer or I/O card.  However, it is still
possible to execute the soft front panel in a demonstration mode
without VTL/VISA and/or the Agilent AGE8481A.  Simply press 'ok' when the
dialog box appears and the soft front panel will then become
available.

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3.   Using the Agilent AGE8481A Driver in Application Development Environments

This section offers suggestions on using the AGE8481A.dll within
various application development environments.

3.1    Microsoft Visual C/C++

Refer to your Microsoft Visual C/C++ manuals for information on linking
and calling .DLLs.

A.) The driver uses stdcall calling conventions.

B.) In addition to the AGE8481A.h header file located in the
    the ~vxipnp\win95\include directory, the driver needs additional
    header files located in the ~\vxipnp\win95\AGE8481A directory.  The
    ~ refers to the directory in the VXIPNP variable.  By default this
    is set to C:\.

3.2    Borland C/C++

Refer to your Borland C/C++ manuals for information on linking and
calling .DLLs.

A.) The driver uses stdcall calling conventions.

3.3   Microsoft Visual Basic

Refer to the Microsoft Visual BASIC manual for information on calling DLLs.
The BASIC include file is AGE8481A.bas, which is contained in the directory
~vxipnp\win95\include. The ~ refers to the directory in the VXIPNP variable.  
By default this is set to C:\.

Note that Microsoft Visual BASIC does not support instrument callback
features.  Therefore, these functions have been omitted from the
include file.

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4.0  WINDOWS 7 x64 Installation. Additional upgrade needed.

Version A.01.01 consists of an upgrade to the Installation software for 
installing the E8481A driver on Windows 7 systems. You must also install 
the following software upgrade:

	   In Windows 7, the update WinHlp32.exe is required to display 32-bit
           Help files that have the ".hlp" file name extension. The
           update is available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607. 


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5.0  Obtaining New and Updated VXIplug&play Drivers

The latest copy of this instrument driver and other Agilent instrument
drivers are available at the Agilent Technologies customer WWW site:

            http://www.agilent.com/find/inst_drivers

The AGE8481A driver is located in a self-extracting archive file called 
AGE8481A.exe.

If you do not have Internet access, the drivers can be obtained by
contacting your country support organization.  In the US, the phone
number is 800-452-4844.  A list of contact information for other
countries is available on the Access Agilent Technologies website:

          http://www.agilent.com/find/contacts00  (two zeros at the end)


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6.0  Revision History

  A.01.00  March 1, 2000  Initial Release.

                          AGE8481A_32.dll   A.01.00
                          hpeswit32v.dll    G.11.01
                          hpescan32v.dll    G.11.01
                          hpvscp32.dll      G.03.03

  A.01.01  June 1, 2012  WINDOWS 7 x64 Installation InstallShield Update

                         This release updates the InstallShield for
                         installations only on XP, WIN 7 x86 and 
                         WIN 7 x64 operating systems.The driver itself has
                         not changed. For Win 95 or Win NT support,
                         utilze version  A.01.00.

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