NEWS RELEASE -- June 10, 2003 -- National Instruments today announced that its NI-Device Version 1.4 and NI-VISA Version 3.0 bus interface software products now support USB.Instrument developers can use NI-Device 1.4 bus interface software to create USB firmware in addition to GPIB and Ethernet firmware for their ANSI/IEEE Standard 488.2 devices.
NI-Device handles most of the IEEE 488.2 protocol requirements for the instrument developer. The software abstracts the communication bus from the instrument-specific firmware so that instrument developers can create bus-independent firmware that adapts to new communication buses while preserving their firmware investment. With NI-Device 1.4, instrument developers can write firmware for any instrument that runs a Windows 2000/NT/XP/Me/98 operating system when the connectivity interface support is through an NI PCI-based GPIB interface, the NI PCI-8211 GPIB/Ethernet interface or the new NI PCI-8215 GPIB/USB interface.
NI-Device 1.4 is also offered in a DDK source-code package for support on non-Windows operating systems.Engineers can use NI-VISA 3.0 bus I/O software to communicate with instruments that support USB in addition to GPIB, Serial, VXI, PXI and Ethernet. NI-VISA bus I/O software is a comprehensive software package for configuring, programming and troubleshooting USB, GPIB, Serial, VXI, PXI and Ethernet systems.
NI-VISA features a complete set of high-performance routines for industry-standard programming environments and intuitive debugging tools. NI-VISA 3.0 software works with NI LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, Measurement Studio and TestStand as well as NI GPIB, VXI and PXI hardware.About National InstrumentsNational Instruments ( http://ni.com ) is a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation -- a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists approach measurement and automation.
Leveraging the PC and its related technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for customers worldwide through easy-to-integrate software, such as the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment, and modular hardware, such as PXI modules for data acquisition, instrument control and machine vision. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 3,000 employees and direct operations in 40 countries. In 2002, the company sold products to more than 25,000 different companies in more than 80 countries around the world. For the past four consecutive years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.
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