HP Forum Archive 13

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HP82973A HPIL PC Card Message #1 Posted by Philip on 20 Sept 2003, 4:15 p.m. Can the 82973A HPIL card that can be installed into a PC be used to control or communicate with other IL devices besides printer, disk, plotter and display devices? For instance, I'd like to control the 3421A Data Acquisition device or 3468A Voltmeter. I know the HPIL.SYS driver turns the PC into a controller but I'm not sure if it can control all devices and if so, how? Thanks

Re: HP82973A HPIL PC Card Message #2 Posted by Holger Veit on 22 Sept 2003, 4:11 a.m., in response to message #1 by Philip >Can the 82973A HPIL card that can be installed into a PC be >used to control or communicate with other IL devices besides >printer, disk, plotter and display devices? For instance, >I'd like to control the 3421A Data Acquisition device or >3468A Voltmeter. I know the HPIL.SYS driver turns the PC >into a controller but I'm not sure if it can control all >devices and if so, how? Effectively, this controller "speaks" HP-IL, and this means it can send and receive any HPIL command that is possible. The HP-IL module in the HP-41 and in the HP-IL converter uses exactly the same chip. So the answer is "yes, that's all possible". The "how to" is the problem, because you have to understand the HP-IL command language, and have to know what instructions the target devices actually accept. This should be documented in the particular documentation for the device (for the 82161 mag tape and the 82162 printer, this is IIRC unfortunately not described in detail, but can be obtained from VASM listings of IL module and other second sources. A must IMHO is to read the Kane&Ushijima bible on HPIL to comprehend what is really going on at all on the bus. Holger

Re: Use EMU41 Message #3 Posted by Christoph Klug on 22 Sept 2003, 5:54 a.m., in response to message #2 by Holger Veit Dear Philip, your application, control the HP3421 or HP3468 or other IL-devices by PC is easy possible by using the new full version of EMU41 from Jean-Francois Garnier. Addidional you get much more advanced features. Please refer to the HP-Museum article forum item 311 "HP41-PC gateway and emulator". Best wishes from Germany - Christoph Klug

Re: HP82973A HPIL PC Card Message #4 Posted by Philip on 22 Sept 2003, 5:24 p.m., in response to message #1 by Philip Thanks for the input. I determined that the HPIL.SYS driver installs a software Interrupt (INT 54) that handles the communication to the IL through the PC Board. I may be able to determine what functions are available. For example, I know that Function Int 54, Function 0 is Config Loop and Function 1 is Find Device. If I find out more I'll try to document this in the Articles forum.

Re: HP82973A HPIL PC Card Message #5 Posted by Ellis Easley on 23 Sept 2003, 11:43 a.m., in response to message #4 by Philip There is a document in the museum FTP site that describes the INT54 driver: ftp://hpmuseum.org/lif/hplink/int54h.doc There are two directories related to the 82973A in the FTP site, lif/hplink and lif/hpillink. I think they represent two different releases of the software that came with the board.

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