21 Apr
2015
21 Apr
'15
7:18 a.m.
I have a software driver for an old scientific instrument that is
described in a brief manual this way:
"The acquisition driver is a tool that allows developers to write their
own Windows based programs that
can acquire data from any Michelson series spectrometer. The programs
can be developed with any
programming environment that supports calling standard Windows 16bit
DLLs. Examples of such
environments are Visual Basic and Visual C++ from Microsoft ( up to
version 1.5 ), Delphi and C++
from Borland, Labview from National instruments. This
document assumes
that the reader is familiar
with all the concepts surrounding DLLs and Windows programming. It is a
reference guide that explains
the parameters of the functions that make up the Bomem acquisition
driver and how they are used to
acquire data."
I recently purchased Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition, but the first
pages of the reference indicate that it is a 32 bit only version.
Which version of Visual Basic will allow me to call this driver?
21 Apr
21 Apr
7:33 a.m.
On Tue, 21 Apr 2015, Douglas Taylor wrote:
I have a software driver for an old scientific
instrument that is described
in a brief manual this way:
"The acquisition driver is a tool that allows developers to write their own
Windows based programs that
can acquire data from any Michelson series spectrometer. The programs can be
developed with any
programming environment that supports calling standard Windows 16bit DLLs.
Examples of such
environments are Visual Basic and Visual C++ from Microsoft ( up to version
1.5 ), Delphi and C++
from Borland, Labview from National instruments. This document assumes that
the reader is familiar
with all the concepts surrounding DLLs and Windows programming. It is a
reference guide that explains
the parameters of the functions that make up the Bomem acquisition driver and
how they are used to
acquire data."
I recently purchased Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition, but the first pages
of the reference indicate that it is a 32 bit only version.
Which version of Visual Basic will allow me to call this driver?
Doug, you should be able to use VB6 for that - you can call a DLL from
just about any programming language on Windows. Does it give you any
example code to work with? Is there a scan of the manual available?
If you're not familiar with VB, I'd be happy to help you get it sorted.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
7:54 a.m.
From my recollection, it seems that VB4 couldn't
directly use 16-bit DLLs
but VB3 can. I think with VB4 I'd created an interface
through VC to load
the routine(s) but that's a clunky way of doing it. You might give VB3 a
shot, depending on which version of Windows you're going to be using.
On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 10:33 AM, geneb <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
On Tue, 21 Apr 2015, Douglas Taylor wrote:
I have a software driver for an old scientific instrument that is
described in a brief manual this way:
"The acquisition driver is a tool that allows developers to write their
own Windows based programs that
can acquire data from any Michelson series spectrometer. The programs can
be developed with any
programming environment that supports calling standard Windows 16bit
DLLs. Examples of such
environments are Visual Basic and Visual C++ from Microsoft ( up to
version 1.5 ), Delphi and C++
from Borland, Labview from National instruments. This document assumes
that the reader is familiar
with all the concepts surrounding DLLs and Windows programming. It is a
reference guide that explains
the parameters of the functions that make up the Bomem acquisition driver
and how they are used to
acquire data."
I recently purchased Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition, but the first
pages of the reference indicate that it is a 32 bit only version.
Which version of Visual Basic will allow me to call this driver?
Doug, you should be able to use VB6 for that - you can call a DLL from
just about any programming language on Windows. Does it give you any
example code to work with? Is there a scan of the manual available?
If you're not familiar with VB, I'd be happy to help you get it sorted.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
9:45 a.m.
The phrase "standard Windows 16bit DLLs" means Windows 3.1 DLLs. Such DLL's
no longer work in a modern windows. If they directly access the hardware then they will
not work on any NT based windows such as Windows/2000, Windows/XP, Vista, or 7, 8 or 9.
Nor will they work on any 64-Bit windows full stop. 64-Bit windows does not support 16-bit
code. If you have a Windows/95, 98 or ME environment then the code may work.
There is information here:-
http://www.tsreader.com/docs/eng-ole.html
on how to call 16-bit DLL's from VB4.
How does the hardware physically interface? Is it a serial or parallel card, or special
hardware.
Dave
G4UGM
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Douglas
Taylor
Sent: 21 April 2015 15:19
To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic Posts
Subject: Visual Basic Question
I have a software driver for an old scientific instrument that is described in a
brief manual this way:
"The acquisition driver is a tool that allows developers to write their own
Windows based programs that can acquire data from any Michelson series
spectrometer. The programs can be developed with any programming
environment that supports calling standard Windows 16bit DLLs. Examples of
such environments are Visual Basic and Visual C++ from Microsoft ( up to
version 1.5 ), Delphi and C++ from Borland, Labview from National
instruments. This document assumes that the reader is familiar with all the
concepts surrounding DLLs and Windows programming. It is a reference
guide that explains the parameters of the functions that make up the
Bomem acquisition driver and how they are used to acquire data."
I recently purchased Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition, but the first pages of
the reference indicate that it is a 32 bit only version.
Which version of Visual Basic will allow me to call this driver?
10:55 a.m.
On Tue, 21 Apr 2015, Dave G4UGM wrote:
The phrase "standard Windows 16bit DLLs"
means Windows 3.1 DLLs. Such
DLL's no longer work in a modern windows. If they directly access the
hardware then they will not work on any NT based windows such as
Windows/2000, Windows/XP, Vista, or 7, 8 or 9. Nor will they work on any
64-Bit windows full stop. 64-Bit windows does not support 16-bit code.
If you have a Windows/95, 98 or ME environment then the code may work.
They should work with 32 bit versions of windows as the 16 bit thunking
layer is still present. YMMV of course.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
11:33 a.m.
Not if they access hardware via ports.
On Apr 21, 2015 6:56 PM, "geneb" <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
On Tue, 21 Apr 2015, Dave G4UGM wrote:
The phrase "standard Windows 16bit DLLs" means Windows 3.1 DLLs. Such
DLL's no longer work in a modern windows. If
they directly access the
hardware then they will not work on any NT based windows such as
Windows/2000, Windows/XP, Vista, or 7, 8 or 9. Nor will they work on any
64-Bit windows full stop. 64-Bit windows does not support 16-bit code. If
you have a Windows/95, 98 or ME environment then the code may work.
They should work with 32 bit versions of windows as the 16 bit thunking
layer is still present. YMMV of course.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
1:25 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of geneb
Sent: 21 April 2015 18:56
To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: Visual Basic Question
On Tue, 21 Apr 2015, Dave G4UGM wrote:
> The phrase "standard Windows 16bit DLLs" means Windows 3.1 DLLs. Such
> DLL's no longer work in a modern windows. If they directly access the
> hardware then they will not work on any NT based windows such as
> Windows/2000, Windows/XP, Vista, or 7, 8 or 9. Nor will they work on
> any 64-Bit windows full stop. 64-Bit windows does not support 16-bit
code.
If you have a
Windows/95, 98 or ME environment then the code may work.
They should work with 32 bit versions of windows as the 16 bit thunking still present. YMMV of course.
What I said was:-
" If they directly access the hardware then they will not work on any NT
based windows such as..."
As they are interfacing to external hardware I assume they access the
hardware directly...
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value
database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
2 May
2 May
12:57 p.m.
On 4/21/2015 4:25 PM, Dave G4UGM wrote:
layer is
An update on this software/hardware adventure:
I have not got a 16 bit capable version of VB4 so I have not started
that yet. The thunking advice is quite relevant since the driver talks
directly to the ISA card.
I am using Visual C++ v1.52 and I am able to write and compile and debug
a short piece of code that calls the 16 bit DLL. There is a conflict in
the calling argument list though,
the manual and the include file Cproto.h say that the directory string
is passed as a 'far pointer', however Visual C++ says it must be a near
pointer. When I run the code
and step thru it using the debugger the first call to acq_open returns a
code integer that indicates one of the passed parameters is wrong, don't
know which one.
I am running under win98se and a companion executable, winvect.exe, is
provided to test the DLL out. It works just fine. I run it from a
MS-DOS window and when it
starts it opens up a window with graphics and plots the data coming from
the spectrometer.
I used a utility, scanbin.exe, to tell me what the exe and dll files
were and it indicates the C++ and winvect.exe are both 'Windows
executables 16 bit'.
The ISA acquisition card uses DMA is this incompatible inside the debugger?
-----Original
Message-----
From: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of geneb
Sent: 21 April 2015 18:56
To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: Visual Basic Question
On Tue, 21 Apr 2015, Dave G4UGM wrote:
> The phrase "standard Windows 16bit DLLs" means Windows 3.1 DLLs. Such
> DLL's no longer work in a modern windows. If they directly access the
> hardware then they will not work on any NT based windows such as
> Windows/2000, Windows/XP, Vista, or 7, 8 or 9. Nor will they work on
> any 64-Bit windows full stop. 64-Bit windows does not support 16-bit
code.
If you
have a Windows/95, 98 or ME environment then the code may work.
They should work
with 32 bit versions of windows as the 16 bit thunking still present. YMMV of course.
What I
said was:-
" If they directly access the hardware then they will not work on any NT
based windows such as..."
As they are interfacing to external hardware I assume they access the
hardware directly...
21 Apr
21 Apr
5:20 p.m.
The interface is an ISA bus card that is a custom design. ISA slots in
computers are hard to come by these days. Luckily for me I ran into a
Gateway in a thrift store that did.
I have some of the diagnostic routines and they run under Windows 98 and
'talk' to the spectrometer via the interface card. I suppose it is
using the same low level driver.
In the published literature of that era (1990's) I found a couple of
references that said they used Visual Basic to get data for experiments.
On 4/21/2015 12:45 PM, Dave G4UGM wrote:
The phrase "standard Windows 16bit DLLs"
means Windows 3.1 DLLs. Such DLL's no longer work in a modern windows. If they
directly access the hardware then they will not work on any NT based windows such as
Windows/2000, Windows/XP, Vista, or 7, 8 or 9. Nor will they work on any 64-Bit windows
full stop. 64-Bit windows does not support 16-bit code. If you have a Windows/95, 98 or ME
environment then the code may work.
There is information here:-
http://www.tsreader.com/docs/eng-ole.html
on how to call 16-bit DLL's from VB4.
How does the hardware physically interface? Is it a serial or parallel card, or special
hardware.
Dave
G4UGM
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Douglas
Taylor
Sent: 21 April 2015 15:19
To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic Posts
Subject: Visual Basic Question
I have a software driver for an old scientific instrument that is described in a
brief manual this way:
"The acquisition driver is a tool that allows developers to write their own
Windows based programs that can acquire data from any Michelson series
spectrometer. The programs can be developed with any programming
environment that supports calling standard Windows 16bit DLLs. Examples of
such environments are Visual Basic and Visual C++ from Microsoft ( up to
version 1.5 ), Delphi and C++ from Borland, Labview from National
instruments. This document assumes that the reader is familiar with all the
concepts surrounding DLLs and Windows programming. It is a reference
guide that explains the parameters of the functions that make up the
Bomem acquisition driver and how they are used to acquire data."
I recently purchased Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition, but the first pages of
the reference indicate that it is a 32 bit only version.
Which version of Visual Basic will allow me to call this driver?
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