One of our software engineers, Dr. Gemei "Mel" Yang, sent some instructions about debugging GPIB communication to a customer as an email. It could be useful to others so I decided to capture it as a post on our blog.
These are some tips for debugging GPIB commands with TILE! 4. It assumes you are using a National Instruments GPIB interface.First, start NI MAX, then start NI Spy. Set it to monitoring mode. Start by checking the GPIB connection. You can test it by using “Communicate with Instrument” in MAX when you find the device in your MAX’s device tree.
Second, go to Tile menu File->Options->GPIB. In that tab, you should see “nigpib32” or “nigpib” in the text box. Click the “Browse” button, and search for nigpib.dll file in your Tile4 default directory. Load it.
Then, close TILE! and restart it.
Fourth, try to connect your NI GPIB to a device that you have a driver for. Load the driver in your instrument window. Make sure give the device a name and the GPIB address must be consistent with NI MAX’s finding.
Finally, use “GPIB” tool in your TILE! tool bar (it looks like a hand with pen), connecting to the driver you connected, and send “*IDN?” by clicking “Write” button; then click “Read” to see what you get in return. You can watch your NI Spy for the status of the communication.