HP-IB drive simulator

Yo, I haven't looked in a while but, you should be able to find a HPIB/ISA card on Ebay in the $25-$50 range. The real problem is getting compatible drivers and software development tools for the card. Every card is different. You may be able to find a card that includes LabView or National Instruments drivers. Those aren't open source so, you'd need their software suite to make use of the card. There is a Linux - HPIB project but, I don't think there is any active develpment work being done on it. Last time I tried to build the project, I could not get a successful build. The project is hardware dependent and I didn't feel like tweaking the ports and registers to make it work with my cards. Never did make any progress with it. The easiest way to get started with HPIB is too find an older HP-UX box with the HPIB support (IE 800 series). HP discontinued HPIB support with HPUX 10.20. So you'll need a system that supports that OS or older. It's not open source but the system calls and libraries are well documented. HPUX 10.20 has instrument drivers (allows communications with many instruments), disk drivers, and tape drivers built-in. Somewhere, I have a HPIB floppy that I'd be willing to part with. If I manage to dig it up, I'll let you know. In case anyone is interested, I may be convinced to part with a HPIB hard drive (ala 7963) or two. I also have a spare HPIB 7980 tape drive or two. Be forewarned, I'm not giving them away! Serious offers only. Steve Robertson steerex [at] ccvn [dot] com