GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus)

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Hewlett Packard developed the General Purpose Interface Bus, or GPIB, in the late 1960s to
facilitate communication between computers and instruments. A bus is simply the means by
which computers and instruments transfer data, and GPIB provided a much-needed specification
and protocol to govern this communication. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
(IEEE) standardized GPIB in 1975, and it became known as the IEEE 488 standard (GPIB =
IEEE 488). GPIB's original purpose was to provide computer control of test and measurement
instruments. However, its use has expanded beyond these applications into other areas, such as
computer-to computer communication and control of multimeters, scanners, and oscilloscopes.
GPIB is a parallel bus that many instruments use for communication. GPIB sends data in bytes
(one byte = eight bits), and the messages transferred are frequently encoded as ASCII character
strings. Your computer can only perform GPIB communication if it has a GPIB board (or
external GPIB box) and the proper drivers installed.

GPIB boards from NI

Instruments and computers connected to the same GPIB bus. Every device,
including the computer interface board, must have a unique GPIB address between 0 and 30, so
that the data source and destinations can be specified by this number. Address 0 is normally
assigned to the GPIB interface board. Instruments connected to the bus can use addresses 1
through 30. The GPIB has one Controller, usually your computer, that controls the bus
management functions. To transfer instrument commands and data on the bus, the Controller
addresses one Talker and one or more Listeners. The data strings are then sent across the bus
from the Talker to the Listener(s). The LabVIEW GPIB VIs automatically handle the addressing
and most other bus management functions, saving you the hassle of low-level programming. The
following illustration shows a typical GPIB system.
 Typical GPIB system containing one or more GPIB enabled
instruments and a GPIB controller board

Although using GPIB is one way to bring data into a computer, it is fundamentally different from
performing data acquisition, even though both use boards that plug into the computer. Using a
special protocol, GPIB talks to another computer or instrument to bring in data acquired by that
device, while data acquisition involves connecting a signal directly up to a computer's DAQ
device. To use GPIB as part of your virtual instrumentation system, you need a GPIB board or
external box, a GPIB cable, LabVIEW and a computer, and an IEEE 488-compatible instrument
with which to communicate (or another computer containing a GPIB board). You also need to
install the GPIB driver software on your computer as well, according to the directions that
accompany LabVIEW or the board.

GPIB COMMUNICATION
The ANSI/IEEE Standard 488.1-1987, also known as General Purpose Interface Bus (GPIB),
describes a standard interface for communication between instruments and controllers from
various vendors. GPIB, instruments offer test and manufacturing engineers the widest selection
of vendors and instruments for general-purpose to specialized vertical market test applications as
shown in GPIB instruments are often used as stand-alone benchtop instruments where
measurements are taken by hand. You can automate these measurements by using a PC to
control the GPIB instruments.

GPIB communication.
IEEE 488.1 contains information about electrical, mechanical and functional specifications.
The ANSI/IEEE Standard 488.2-1992 extends IEEE 488.1 by defining a bus communication
protocol, a common set of data codes and formats, and a generic set of common device
commands. GPIB is a digital, 8-bit parallel communication interface with data transfer rates of 1
Mbyte/s and higher, using a three-wire handshake. The bus supports one system controller,
usually a computer, and up to 14 additional instruments. The GPIB protocol categorizes devices
as controllers, talkers, or listeners to determine which device has active control of the bus. Each
device has a unique. GPIB primary address between 0 and 30. The controller defines the
communication links, responds to devices that request service, sends GPIB commands, and
passes/receives control of the bus. Controllers instruct talkers to talk and to place data on the
GPIB. You can address only one device at a time to talk. The controller addresses the listener to
listen and to read data from the GPIB. You can address several devices to listen.

Data Transfer Termination

Termination informs listeners that all data has been transferred. You can terminate a GPIB data
transfer in the following three ways:
● The GPIB includes an end-or-Identify (EOI) hardware line that can be asserted with the
last data byte. This is the preferred method.
● Place a specific end-of-string (EOS) character at the end of the data string itself. Some
instruments use this method instead of or in addition to the EOI line assertion.
● The listener counts the bytes transferred by handshaking and stops reading when the
listener reaches a byte count limit. This method is often used as a default termination
method because the transfer stops on the logical OR of EOI, EOS (if used) in conjunction
with the byte count. Thus, you typically set the byte count to equal or exceed the expected
number of bytes to be read.

Data Transfer Rate

To achieve the high data transfer rate that the GPIB was designed for, you must limit the number
of devices on the bus and the physical distance between devices. You can obtain faster data rates
with HS488 devices and controllers. HS488 is an extension to GPIB that most NI controllers
support.

HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS
The GPIB is a digital, 24-conductor parallel bus. As shown in Figure 10.4, it consists of eight
data lines (DIO 1-8), five bus management lines (EOI, IFC, SRQ, ATN, REN), three handshake
lines (DAV, NRFD, NDAC), and eight ground lines. The GPIB uses an eight-bit parallel, byte-
serial, asynchronous data transfer scheme. This means that whole bytes are sequentially
handshake across the bus at a speed that the slowest participant in the transfer determines.
Because the unit of data on the GPIB is a byte (eight bits), the messages transferred are
frequently encoded as ASCII character strings.
 Hardware specification.

Additional electrical specifications allow data to be transferred across the GPIB at the maximum
rate of 1 MB/sec because the GPIB is a transmission line system. These specifications are:
● A maximum separation of 4 m between any two devices and an average separation of 2 m
over the entire bus.
● A maximum cable length of 20 m.
● A maximum of 15 devices connected to each bus with at least two-thirds
of the devices powered on.
If you exceed any of these limits, you can use additional hardware to extend the bus cable
lengths or expand the number of devices allowed.

SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE
The software architecture for the instrument control using LabVIEW is similar to the architecture
for DAQ. Instrument interfaces such as GPIB include a set of drivers. Use MAX to configure the
interface. VISA, Virtual Instrument Software Architecture, is a common API to communicate
with the interface drivers and is the preferred method used when programming for instrument
control in LabVIEW, because VISA abstracts the type of interface used. Many LabVIEW VIs
used for instrument control use the VISA API. For example, the Instrument I/O Assistant is a
LabVIEW Express VI that can use VISA to communicate with message-based instruments and
convert the response from raw data to an ASCII representation. Use the Instrument I/O Assistant
when an instrument driver is not available. In LabVIEW, an instrument driver is a set of VIs
specially written to communicate with an instrument. Underneath and between the different
hardware components are the software components that are the heart of your instrumentation
system. Figure 10.5 shows the software architecture for Windows 2000/XP from the perspective
of the computer. The instrument is connected to the computer through a built-in connector such
as RS-232 or an installed interface board such as GPIB or VXI/MXI. Driver-level software for
instrument is in the form of a Dynamic Link Library (DLL). In the example shown in the figure,
LabVIEW is the high-level application software layer. LabVIEW includes built-in functions for
GPIB, serial, VXI, and computer-based instruments that load and use the installed driver
software.

Software architecture for Windows.

As with all Windows device drivers, any DLLs you install for interface boards will also
interact with the Windows Registry so that resources such as base addresses, interrupt levels and
DMA channels can be assigned. Configuration and diagnostic software tools are also available
with National Instruments hardware.