Advantech drivers for PCL-711B control/DAQ ISA card

Hello All, I've been bounced into a data acquisition job and presented my boss with a nice low-risk solution using an Agilent 34970a data acquisition mainframe, one of the cheapest on the market, but he seems to be ( won't say it ) looking for super-cheap, and the best I can find are cards by Advantech etc.

So, I want to use an Axiomtech relay muliplexer card with an Advantech 711 digital and analog IO ISA card, principally for the digital output function to control the Axiomtech MUX.

Here's the question! I am not a programmer, though I can achieve a little something in QBasic if necessary, so is the software interface and driver that comes with the 711 easy to use with minimal specialist knowledge. If I have to spend a week or more becoming an expert in computer architecture or writing reams of code it won't be worth my while.

Anyone used the drivers?

cheers,

Andy.

Reply to
Andy
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I have a few of that series of cards. PCL-7xx & PCL-8xx It seems to me that I did direct port calls and did not use the supplied driver. As I look at the various driver files I see that most of them are no newer than 1998. I do not recall why I chose not to use the Advantech drivers. I guess it was easier to simply program the outport/inpport calls in Borland C++ Builder than get the drivers to load in that programming environment. Of course, direct I/O calls are not a viable option in XP (disallowed for security reasons) so you would have to use any available drivers if you are working in XP

What operating system will your application use?

It might be worth a call or email to Advantech after dwnloading and reviewing the manual and available software.

You can buy a lot of (current) hardware for the money that will be spent putzing around for a week in marginally supported hardware. You might take a look at MeasurementComputing

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Are you TRYING to stay with an ISA equipped computer? One of the reasons that the value of used ISA boards has dropped to nil is because it is VERY hard to find a computer/motherboard that has both an ISA slot AND support for CPU/MEMORY that will run anything close to current operating systems. If you are planning to run DOS and program in Qbasic it will work alright. It doesnt take much code to write a byte to the Digital Output or read the Digital Input.

Good luck

Reply to
Jim Whiting

Ok I spoke too soon. It looks like they still support (and manufacture the PCL-711 !!) . I'm impressed. Advantech should be commended. Here is the link

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32bit drivers, VB & QB examples and even a video showing something (I didnt look at it).

Reply to
Jim Whiting

Thanks Jim! Andy

Reply to
Andy

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