Keithley 4403 PC Based free download

File name 4403_PC_Based.pdf

Trends in PC-Based Test and Measurement By James Borton Product Marketing Manager Keithley Instruments, Inc. In today's test and measurement environment, developments in PC-based systems are rising to meet user expectations for greater capabilities. Continuous improvements in personal computers and operating systems provide the power for a much wider range of measurement and control applications. Instrumentation companies are also working hard to introduce high performance, easy-to-use products that capitalize on the power and flexibility of the PC. Both hardware and software capabilities are rapidly increasing, while the cost and size of products is falling. Each day, users are finding that PC-based test and measurement allows higher throughput and is more cost-effective than other alternatives. While this is going on, product life cycles for PC-based test system products are getting shorter. There is a variety of new products and methodologies being offered. To help the reader keep up with these developments, six important trends in PC-based test and measurement are discussed below. 1. Instrument Form Factors A key movement is towards smaller, smarter, and less expensive PC boards. Capabilities are increasing as size decreases. Correspondingly, there is renewed interest in PCMCIA cards for PC-based test. The portability features of notebook PCs allow users to bring this test technology to any field location. The new 32-bit CardBus for notebook PCs is gaining attention because it allows data transmission over the PCMCIA bus at PCI rates (132 Mbyte/s throughput). The evolution from the PCMCIA bus to CardBus seems likely to follow a path similar to that of the migration from the ISA to PCI bus. Keithley's KPCI-PIO24 and -PIO96 boards provide 24 and 96 bi-directional TTL-level parallel digital I/O lines for control and monitoring under Windows