README.TXT for Agilent E1411 Voltmeter

Contents:

1    Introduction

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

3    Using the Agilent E1411 Driver in Application Development Environments
3.1    Microsoft Visual C/C++
3.2    Borland C/C++
3.3    Microsoft Visual Basic
3.4    Example Programs

4.0  WINDOWS 7 x64 Installation. Additional upgrades needed.

5.0  Known Defects

6.0  Obtaining New and Updated VXIplug&play Drivers

7.0  Revision History


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1.   Introduction

The help file included with the Agilent E1411 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.   VISA Specific Information

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

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"

If you are not using the Agilent Command module and wish to form a scanning
multimeter put the addresses within parenthesis.  For example, if the
Agilent E1411 is at logical address 56 and the switch is a logical address 57,
then use "VXI0::(56,57)::INSTR" for the address string.

2.2  Executing the Soft Front Panel without VISA

The VISA dynamic link library provides a communication library between
your program and the instrument.  If you receive a message that
VISA32.DLL cannot be found when executing the soft front panel
(hpe1411.exe), VISA is not installed on your system. To communicate
with the Agilent E1411, you must install 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 VISA and/or the
Agilent E1411.  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 E1411 Driver in Application Development Environments

This section offers suggestions on using the hpe1411.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.

Rebuilding the driver requires header files located in the
~\winnt\hpe1411 or ~\win95\hpe1411 directory.  The ~ refers to the
directory in the VXIPNPPATH variable.  By default this is set to
C:\VXIPNP on Agilent I/O Libraries revisions prior to J.01.00; or
to C:\Program Files\VISA on revisions J.01.00 or later.

3.2    Borland C/C++

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

3.3   Microsoft Visual Basic

Refer to the Microsoft Visual BASIC manual for information on calling DLLs.
The BASIC include file is hpe1460.bas, which is contained in the directory
~\winnt\include or ~\win95\include. The ~ refers to the directory in the
VXIPNPPATH variable.  By default this is set to C:\VXIPNP on Agilent I/O
Libraries revisions prior to J.01.00; or to C:\Program Files\VISA on
revisions J.01.00 or later.

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


3.4  Example Programs

The example programs provided are only operable using the Agilent command
module.

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4.0 WINDOWS 7 x64 Installation. Additional upgrades needed.  

Version A.02.17 consists of an upgrade to the Installation software for 
installing the E1411 driver on Windows 7 systems. You must also install 
the following 2 software upgrades:

	   
	1) The National Instruments CVI Runtime Engine which can be 
	   downloaded from http://sine.ni.com/psp/app/doc/p/id/psp-272.

	2) In Windows 7, 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  Known Defects

The driver will NOT take more than 4095 readings and bring them back
successfully.  This is a formatted I/O problem brought about by reading
data in IEEE block format for speed purposes.  If the block exceeds
32767 bytes (4096 readings * 8 bytes/reading) then the read will fail.

Affected routines:
  hpe1411_read_Q, hpe1411_fetc_Q, hpe1411_measureList_Q, hpe1411_measTempList_Q.

Work Around:

  Make sure trigger count * sample count * number of channels (if switches
  are involved) is less than or equal to 4095.

  
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6.0  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

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/assist


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7.0  Revision History

  A.01.00  March 7, 1996	Initial Release.
  A.01.01  April 1996.  
  A.02.00  October, 1996	Win 95/NT Release
  A.02.01  December 12, 1996 	Defect fixes
  A.02.02  April 3, 1997	Defect fixes	

                                   hpe1411_32.dll    :  A.02.02
                                   hpe132632v.dll    :  G.06.04
                                   hpescan32v.dll    :  G.08.01
                                   hpvscp32.dll      :  G.02.02

  A.02.03  November 1997        Fixed Defect in timer routine that
                                prevented the driver from working 
                                properly on 200 MHz Pentium Pro systems.

                                   hpe1411_32.dll    :  A.02.02
                                   hpe132632v.dll    :  G.06.04
                                   hpescan32v.dll    :  G.08.01
                                   hpvscp32.dll      :  G.03.01
 
 Release A.02.04 4/1998
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.03
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.03
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.02
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.07.00
 Release A.02.05       
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.03
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.04
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	:  G.03.02
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.07.00
 Release A.02.05 7/98       
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.04
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.04
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.02
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.07.0o
 Release A.02.06 9/98       
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.04
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.04
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.02
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.07.02

 Release A.02.07 September 22, 1998  Added "Overload" message to P&P dll.
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.05
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.04
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.02

 Release A.02.09 November 4, 1998  Added E8460 support
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.08
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.04
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.02
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.08.01
				  hpescan32v.dll	: G.10.01

 Release A.02.10 November 23, 1998  Fixed 10u APER problem
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.10
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.04
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.02
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.08.01
				  hpescan32v.dll	: G.10.01

 Release A.02.11 July 16, 1999   Firewire updates to voltmeter and switchbox
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.11
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.04
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.08.03
				  hpescan32v.dll	: G.10.02
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.03
                                  visaext.dll           : H.01.00.01

 Release A.02.13 August 20, 1999  Fixed a trigger delay problem when sampling
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.11
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.04
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.08.04
				  hpescan32v.dll	: G.10.02
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.03
                                  visaext.dll           : H.01.00.01

 Release A.02.14 January 21, 2000 Updated readme.txt with Agilent names
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.11
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.04
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.08.04
				  hpescan32v.dll	: G.10.02
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.03
                                  visaext.dll           : H.01.00.01

 Release A.02.15 October 8, 2001 Agilent rebranding
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.13
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.05
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.08.05
				  hpescan32v.dll	: G.11.02
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.04
                                  visaext.dll           : K.01.00.00

 Release A.02.16 October 31, 2002 SFP gave error when launching help file
				  hpe1411_32.dll 	: A.02.13
				  hps1411.exe		: A.02.06
				  hpe132632v.dll	: G.08.05
				  hpescan32v.dll	: G.11.02
                                  hpvscp32.dll      	: G.03.04
                                  visaext.dll           : K.01.00.00
Release A.02.17 February 16, 2012 InstallShield Upgrade for WIN 7 x64 Systems
				  This release updates the InstallShield for installation
          			  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.02.16.
