I too buy a fair number of GPIB cards, about 10-15 a year for use in the equipment I sell. I have bought four NI GPIB PCI cards in the last few months. One did not work as expected. I was horrified when I called NI. They asked that I pay > $200 U.S for a "support contract" so that they could provide technical support for the card I just bought from them. There is no longer any free technical support. You will be referred to an online forum were you can get help from other users.
I am presently testing a GPIB card from INES(Germany). Their old drivers did not allow drop in replacement but hopefully their new one will. I am not sure if anyone has had any experience with Quancom(Germany) but their cards look pretty cheap. Happy Easter to our Christian members and Happy new year to our Persian ones. -Patrick Dennis Tillman wrote: > H Dave, > > Over the past 6 years I have bought 15 or more NI GPIB cards for use in PCs. > Nearly all of them have been bought on eBay. They have all worked fine. > National Instruments is the Rolls Royce of GPIB cards. Technical support and > driver support is first rate for all sorts of operating systems and > hardware, not just PCs. Their software includes good debugging tools and > manuals as well. There are more NI GPIB cards than any other brand on eBay. > They are the standard because they are simply the best and the easiest to > use. > > There are three kinds of national Instruments GPIB adapters I have purchased > for the PC: > 1) PCMCIA cards which come in two versions - newer and older. The older > version, which has an attractive blue schematic design on it, comes in two > variations. The PLUS variation has some advanced debugging capabilities but > these capabilities do not work on later versions of Windows. The newer > PCMCIA card is a rather dull light brown color. I typically pay about $175 > to $225 for either version of PCMCIA cards. Both the newer and the older > ones work fine. The PLUS version is very rare and usually goes for over > $300. Be sure you get a PCMCIA card with a cable. The cable is the only > thing that seems to have changed between the older veresion and the newer > version. The cable can be pulled out of the older PCMCIA card because it is > not locked into the card. It has a different, wider, connector on it. The > newer PCMCIA card has a narrower cable on it with two tiny metal ears that > lock/unlock it to the card. In my mind this newer, locking cable is a > disadvantage because a good yank on the cable will pull the PCMCIA card > right out of your laptop, which makes the laptop very unhappy. With the old, > non-locking, cable if you yank on the cable it will separate from the PCMCIA > card but at least the card stays in the laptop and you can plug the cable > right back in. > > 2) The PCI card. These typically go for $150 on eBay. They are very good but > they are pricey. They are very common on eBay. > > 3) The ISA card. If your PC has an ISA slot then this is a real bargain. > They go for $25 on eBay. They are not as common on ebay as they once were > because people think they are have been replaced with the PCI versions. Look > for one that specifically says TNT PNP. These cards are Plug and Play and > they actually do work that way even though they were one of the first plug > and play cards to come out. They are bug free and they work fine. But they > come in several versions not all of which are Plug and Play. So be sure the > one you are bidding on says PNP on it. It is marked on the top of the card > in clear letters. TNT was their name for the chip they designed that did all > the GPIB interfacing. > > I have used John Miles software with the NI PCMCIA GPIB adapters I have. It > works fine. There is no reason at all why it wouldn't work with any of the > NI GPIB adapters. > > Dennis > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > This group seems to be very GPIB savvy, so I have a question (vaguely > related to time and frequency) - is there a real difference between the half > sized current one large chip NI PCI-GPIB card and the older and larger > version with multiple chips that proceeded it ? > > Which would you buy on Ebay ? any gotchas ? > > This is of course among other things for use with John Miles software... and > HP and Racal counters and so forth... > > Dave Emery N1PRE/AE > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.