Using Agilent and National Instruments
Hardware and Software in the Same System

Agilent does not officially support the Agilent VISA IO Library controlling National Instrument's IO hardware, nor the NI-VISA IO Library controlling Agilent's IO hardware, except on the Agilent E9850A Embedded Controller.

We have had requests from customers wanting to mix National Instruments and Agilent IO hardware and software. We realize that some of our customers need these mixed environments to support new products from Agilent and NI. With VISA, interoperability with mixed IO hardware and software is now easier. We expect most of these mixed configurations to work. However, since these configurations have not been thoroughly tested, we cannot officially support them at this time. The only platform that officially supports a mixed environment is the Agilent E9850A Embedded Controller.

This page describes the following:

How to configure a National Instruments GPIB card to work with the Agilent IO Libraries

To use an NI GPIB card with the Agilent IO Libraries, do the following:

  1. Install the NI-488.2 software (version 1.5 or later) according to the instructions supplied with the NI card and the NI software.
  2. Install and configure the NI-GPIB card in your computer.
  3. Install the Agilent IO Libraries (version J.01.00 or later).
  4. Run the Agilent IO Config program and configure the SICL on NI GPIB interface(s).
  5. If SICL on NI GPIB is not listed in the Available Interface Types in IO Config, you must create and/or edit the intfcfg.ini file to make it available.
  6. If you are using NI VISA and have enabled the VISA Library Passport for Tulip, be sure to view the Known Problems section below.

Creating and editing the intfcfg.ini file to force Agilent IO Config to recognize the presence of an NI-GPIB card.

If IO Config did not detect the presence of a configured NI-488 GPIB interface, you can override the default search algorithm and directly specify the configured NI-488 GPIB interfaces by creating and editing the intfcfg.ini so that IO Config can configure them.

Creating intfcfg.ini:

The intfcfg.ini file must be created.  It is not installed by the Agilent IO Libraries installer.  If you have not previously created intfcfg.ini, you can create it by copying the sample intfcfg.txt file to intfcfg.ini.  intfcfg.txt is located in the intfcfg subdirectory under the Agilent IO Libraries installation directory:
  c:\Program Files\Agilent\IO Libraries\intfcfg\intfcfg.txt (if you installed in the default location)

Note:
If you are using Windows explorer to create intfcfg.ini, make sure that 'Hide File Extensions' is not set. If it is set, you will really be creating intfcfg.ini.txt, which will not work.

Editing intfcfg.ini:

  1. Locate the [CfgNi488] section in the intfcfg.ini file.
  2. 'Uncomment' (by removing the leading semicolon) the appropriate GPIBn=yes line to force IO Config to recognize the NI-488 GPIB interface.  Uncomment only the lines for which you have a configured NI-488 GPIB interface.
  3. Save the modified intfcfg.ini file.
  4. You can now run IO Config to configure the interface(s).

How to configure an Agilent GPIB card for use with National Instruments VISA

To use an Agilent GPIB card with NI-VISA, do the following (and be sure to reboot when prompted):

  1. Install NI-VISA (version 2.5 or later).
  2. Install the Agilent GPIB card in your computer.
  3. Install the Agilent IO Libraries (J.01.00 or later) and choose the Full SICL Installation option (It is the default if NI-VISA is installed).
  4. Configure the Agilent hardware using the Agilent IO Config program.
  5. Run NI's Measurement and Automation Explorer program (MAX) and use the menu to navigate to:
        'Tools | NI-VISA | Passport Editor'.
    Verify that the box for:
        'NIVisaTulip.dll - VISA Library Passport for Tulip'
    is checked.  This box is not checked by default.
  6. Close MAX
  7. The Agilent GPIB card should now be accessible from NI-VISA. It should be visible using the 'NI Visa Interactive Control' (VISAIC) program.
  8. View the Known Problems section below for information on how to correct a problem which may prevent NI-VISA from finding the GPIB interface.

Known Problems:

There are several known problems with NI-VISA version 2.5 when using the Agilent IO Libraries.

  1. Agilent GPIB cards do not show up in the Measurement and Automation Explorer (MAX) program.
  2. MAX will GPF if VISA Library Passport for Tulip is enabled and a there is an NI-488 GPIB card configured by Agilent IO Config.  This will happen even if there is no name collision as described below.
  3. NI-VISA will not be able to find the GPIB interface if the following conditions are true:

Preventing a naming conflict in NI-VISA (version 2.5):

For Agilent GPIB cards, NI-VISA will assign an Agilent GPIB card a VISA interface name of GPIBn where n is the trailing number of the SICL name assigned by the Agilent IO Config program. (e.g. hpib7 in SICL will translate to GPIB7 in NI-VISA.)  If the SICL name does not have a trailing number, the n will be assigned from the logical unit number assigned by the Agilent IO Config program.

If Agilent VISA has configured an NI-488 GPIB card, it will normally default the SICL name to gpib0.  The VISA Library Passport for Tulip will then map this back to NI-VISA as GPIB0.  This will conflict with the GPIB0 that is already mapped to the NI-488 GPIB card in NI-VISA.  This conflict will cause NI-VISA to not recognize the GPIB interface.

The work-around for this problem is to run Agilent IO Config and edit the SICL name for this card to something else to prevent the conflict (e.g. gpib10).  This will then, for this example, map to GPIB10 in NI-VISA and not cause a conflict with GPIB0.  Note, that although the GPIB10 interface is accessible from NI-VISA, it points indirectly (through Agilent SICL) to the same hardware as GPIB0.  For this reason, your VISA programs should use GPIB0 and not GPIB10. 

Known Limitations:

  1. MAX and VISAIC are installed with NI-VISA. This software is only available from National Instruments. Agilent does not ship this software.
  2. You cannot install both Agilent and National Instruments VISA on the same system.  The last VISA to be installed will overwrite the first VISA installation.  For this reason, the Agilent IO Libraries defaults to installing only SICL when it detects that NI-VISA has been installed.  You can force Agilent VISA to overwrite NI-VISA by selecting the Full SICL and Agilent VISA Installation menu choice when installing the IO Libraries.

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