[Test-Equipment] Any GPIB and/or LabVIEW users?

[Robert Nickels]

On 11/18/2010 1:26 AM, DaveC wrote:
> The only ways I know to do this is with National Instruments' LabVIEW
> or to write a custom program.
>
If you're a student (or could perhaps coordinate your research through a 
local college or university) the LabView Student Edition would be an 
option - the cost of the software alone is $20-$59 for qualified 
students.  In any case it can't hurt to try to form a relationship with 
them to see what might be possible under their licensing agreements.

There's little doubt that National Instruments has done such a good job 
of serving the market that there aren't many alternatives to LabView 
today.   But - a long long time ago in a galaxy where Windows hadn't yet 
been invented and the dominant spreadsheet was Lotus 123 - a clever 
add-in called "Lotus Measure" was offered.  This program ran under DOS 
and allowed data acquisition and simple control tasks to be performed in 
the background, following a sequential measurement task that was entered 
into Lotus spreadsheet cells.   I can't find any references but I'm 
pretty sure it could control GPIB boards and do serial I/O as well as 
some dedicated PC-based hardware.  I know for sure it was easy enough 
for a typical engineer to lean and become effective in using to automate 
lab experiments with the results coming right into the PC for further 
analysis.   Even though it would have to run on an old DOS PC, if it 
could still control GPIB instruments today.

All in all it was a very slick solution for it's time and even today 
would be a great option for Excel users.    Maybe if we ask nicely 
someone will create "Google Measure"?

73, Bob W9RAN