Agilent 34980a & HTBasic with GPIB-USB ?

[photonsinglet]

hi,

Trying to communicate with a new Agilent Keysight 34980a using  TranEra HTBasic  and an  NI GPIB-USB controller.

The 34980a is being used to upgrade an aging 30 year old HP 3497a unit in an existing measurement system.

The HP3497a system software was HP Instrument Basic(a Rocky Mountain Basic, on a 386 box), and was sucessfully migrated to TransEra HTBasic on a Win 7 box using an NI GPIB-USB. That all works fine.

The Issue:

GPIB Communication problems to/from the Agilent Keysight 34980a using TransEra HTBasic:

-- Using the new 34980a I am not able to communicate via the NI GPIB-USB using the existing HTBasic software ( via antique OUTPUT, INPUT, nor ENTER, nor CLEAR commands and ASCII "text strings" as is used in the TransEra HT BASIC for the old HP 3497a).

-- Is there some different software sysntax required ?

-- Are there different <CR> <LF> or <EOL> or <FF> or <EOI> command structures, or syntax or placement required ?

-- or their "\r\n" or ASCII "13" or "10" equivalents { both or individual or none ?}

-- Are there possible LOAD BIN libraries (Agilent or NI) that are required to be placed directly in the HTBasic program ?

-- Is it possible that the old HTBasic can not make use of (a conflict) with the new GPIB-USB drivers (both NI & Agilent) already installed on the cpu ?

--  { is it possible that the TransEra HTBasic is a non-DDL language & thus unable to function with the new drivers or IO Libraries ? }

I am unable to get any response from "*IDN?" nor "*RST" nor other 34980a commands "MEASure", etc... using HTBasic.

All Agilent Utility independent software (Connection Expert, BenchLink Data Logger, etc.) does work fine with the NI GPIB-USB & the 34980a.

Voltages can be correctly measured, etc.

I am constrained to using the TransEra HTBasic for this hardware upgrade project.

Experienced thoughtful help (programing code examples)  to try  would be appreciated.

thank you,

[scmave]

You may need to get in touch with Agilent about this system. If the GPIB works fine, then it will be dependent on the types of commands your new hardware takes, which would be specified in their manuals somewhere hopefully. I tried checking their manuals but it's not readily available for download - you have to have an account. The GPIB card is just the one send the commands, but isn't command specific.I'm not sure why it won't respond to SCPI commands because it looks like the hardware is SCPI complient, but I think you'll get better input on another forum.