I have a need to do some very specialized data acquisition that may require building special hardware. I would still like to use LabVIEW as the front end and perhaps even carry portions of the interface over into the final product. However, I cannot find the documentation. Where is that kept? I have seen references to a number of generic protocols, without any links back to the details, that may be suitable. The data is high bandwidth, but bursty with sampling rates up to 40 MHz and events that last about 100 milliseconds. Can anyone recommend which of the various methods would best suit this application?

You can use the instrument driver template and guidelines. http://www.ni.com/white-paper/3271/en/ use google to search not NI i searched instrument driver guidelines national instruments

Instrument Control (GPIB, Serial, VISA, IVI)

Where are the guidelines for how to interface customized data acquisition equipment to LabVIEW?

Solved!

Well, USB could be an option. NI uses it with a 100 MS digitizer.

All of the common interfaces have well defined standards. All have example code on the LabVIEW side and I don't think any are magnitudes more difficult to implement than any other. I have no idea what sort of platforms you have looked at that have no drivers.

How much experience do you have with writing firmware or kernel level drivers? Will this be strictly internal? Do you want laptop compatibility?