Software Drivers-Windows & DOS

The SW800 Series of Windows and DOS Drivers are software packages that provide subroutine calls to access the I/O functions of the RTI-800 Series of Analog and Digital boards. There are four hardware-specific packages. Each package includes support for high level languages in both Windows and DOS. (See list of supported languages in the features chart.) The driver software packages provide a high level interface to the RTI-800 Series analog and digital boards. Complex analog, digital, and counter/timer I/O operations are simplified with keywords such as SCAN, AOT, FINSTART. In order to use the driver software, experience with a programming language such as BASIC or VISUAL BASIC for Windows and familiarity with the application is required.

Each SW800 Series driver software package consists of all language

libraries and a board library for the specific hardware

supported. The language libraries include a language binding

that handles the different parameter passing conventions used

by the languages, as well as calls to the hardware libraries.

Board libraries contain the low level subroutines that perform

the I/O routines. Common language-specific packages within

the SW800 Series can be merged to run in one system. For example,

if a user wants to operate an RTI-815 and

RTI-827 board

in the same system and wants to develop an application in

Microsoft C ++ , the SW-800 and SW-827

packages can be combined

using the LINK facility.

An error-processing system checks for argument errors in

every setup and I/O subroutine. Attempts to operate in

illegal modes are trapped, and error codes are reported.

Run-time errors such as "Overrun error detected" are also

reported.

Table I lists the I/O routines in the SW800 Series of MS-DOS

and Windows Driver Software packages. The target system

for the SW800 Series of Driver Software is an IBM PC/AT

or 100% compatible system with PC-DOS, MS-DOS (Version

3.3 or higher), or Windows 3.1, and one floppy disk

drive and one hard disk drive.

Table II lists application software packages, available from

third party vendors, which require little or no programming

on the part of the user prior to configuring and running an

application. Applications range from simple data collection

and analysis to real-time control and high speed streaming

of data to disk.