README.TXT for Agilent E1442 Form C/A Switch 

Contents:

1    Introduction

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

3    Using the Agilent E1442 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 Installation. 
       Additional upgrade needed.

5.0  Online Information

6.0  Revision History

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1.   Introduction

The help file included with the Agilent E1442 VXIplug&play driver contains
instrument and programming information. This readme file contains
additional information for the 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"

2.4  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
VISA.DLL cannot be found when executing the soft front panel
(hpe1442.exe), VISA is not installed on your system. To communicate
with the Agilent E1442, 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 E1442.  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 E1442 Driver in Application Development Environments

This section offers suggestions on using the hpe1442.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\hpe1442 or ~\win95\hpe1442 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 hpe1442.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.

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4.0 WINDOWS 7 Installation. Additional upgrade needed.  

Version  A.02.10 consists of an upgrade to the Installation software for 
installing the E1442 driver on Windows 7 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.02.09. 

With this driver, You must also install the following software upgrade:

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


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5.0  Online Information

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 hpe1442 driver is located in a self-extracting archive file called 
e1442.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/assist

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6.0  Revision History

  A.01.00  March 15, 1996  Initial Release.
  A.02.00  August 25, 1996 Windows95/NT Release

           hpe1442_32.dll    :  A.02.00
           hpeswit32v.dll    :  G.08.01
           hpescan32v.dll    :  G.08.01
           hpvscp32.dll      :  G.02.02

  A.02.01  November 1997
           
           Fixed timer defect that prevented the driver from running
           properly on 200 MHz Pentium Pro systems.

           hpe1442_32.dll    :  A.02.00
           hpeswit32v.dll    :  G.08.01
           hpescan32v.dll    :  G.08.01
           hpvscp32.dll      :  G.03.01

  A.02.02  April 3, 1998
              Fixed more High-Speed computer problems.

              hpe1442_32.dll         A.02.02
              hps1442.exe            A.02.02
              hpeswit32v.dll         G.09.00
              hpescan32v.dll         G.09.00
              hpvscp32.dll           G.03.01

  A.02.03  June 12, 1998
              Switchbox dll update

              hpe1442_32.dll         A.02.02
              hps1442.exe            A.02.02
              hpeswit32v.dll         G.09.01
              hpescan32v.dll         G.09.01
              hpvscp32.dll           G.03.01

  A.02.04  September 2, 1998
              Corrected "HPR" to "HPE" in the .def and .lib files

              hpe1442_32.dll         A.02.02
              hps1442.exe            A.02.02
              hpeswit32v.dll         G.09.01
              hpescan32v.dll         G.09.01
              hpvscp32.dll           G.03.01

  A.02.06  November 4, 1998 Switchbox dll update

              hpe1442_32.dll         A.02.06
              hps1442.exe            A.02.02
              hpeswit32v.dll         G.10.01
              hpescan32v.dll         G.10.01
              hpvscp32.dll           G.03.01

  A.02.07  July 6, 1999 Switchbox dll update

              hpe1442_32.dll         A.02.07
              hps1442.exe            A.02.02
              hpeswit32v.dll         G.10.02
              hpescan32v.dll         G.10.02
              hpvscp32.dll           G.03.03
              visaext.dll            H.01.00.01

  A.02.08  January 21, 2000   Updated readme.txt with Agilent names

              hpe1442_32.dll         A.02.07
              hps1442.exe            A.02.02
              hpeswit32v.dll         G.10.02
              hpescan32v.dll         G.10.02
              hpvscp32.dll           G.03.03
              visaext.dll            H.01.00.01

  A.02.09  October 29, 2001   Agilent rebranding

              hpe1442_32.dll         A.02.08
              hps1442.exe            A.02.03
              hpeswit32v.dll         G.11.02
              hpescan32v.dll         G.11.02
              hpvscp32.dll           G.03.04
              visaext.dll            K.01.00.00

 A.02.10  March 22, 2012   WINDOWS 7 Installation Upgrade.

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