Technical data

Programming Your Instruments 6
Agilent Connectivity Guide 139
• Readability. Your programs will be much easier to read and
understand if, for example, your multimeter is called “myDMM”
instead of “GPIB2::14::8::INSTR”. This is particularly important
in the case of USB instruments, whose VISA addresses are
typically long and cumbersome, containing the instrument's serial
number among other information.
Using aliases with SICL and with Agilent 488. When you create a
VISA alias, Connection Expert automatically creates SICL and Agilent
488 aliases of the same name. You can use a SICL alias in place of a
SICL address in the iopen function call, or an Agilent 488 alias in the
ibfind function call, with the same advantages described above.
Default aliases for USB devices.
Connection Expert gives an alias to
each instrument you connect via USB, because VISA addresses for
USB devices are long and cumbersome. Connection Expert assigns
aliases UsbDevice1, UsbDevice2, etc.; you can change these names by
selecting the alias in the explorer view and clicking the Change...
button.
Addressing Instruments via GPIB
To address instruments via a GPIB interface (such as an 82351 GPIB
interface or 82357 USB/GPIB interface converter), first check the
default configuration of the interface using Connection Expert.
Steps to Configure a GPIB Interface
These steps are written for the 82351 PCI GPIB interface card. Modify
the steps as required if you use another type of supported GPIB
interface. The Agilent IO Libraries Suite Online Help includes a
description of configurable parameters for each supported interface
type.
NOTE
If you plan to program your instruments using the Agilent 488 API, or to
run NI-488.2–compatible programs with Agilent interface hardware
(such as GPIB cards), you may need to enable the Agilent 488 library.
To do this, click Tools > Agilent 488..., then select the check box
labeled Enable Agilent GPIB cards for 488 programs.