UEI ships industry's first fully supported LabView drivers for Linux

Available at no charge, PowerDAQ LabView for Linux makes it unnecessary to
turn to unsupported, undocumented open-source drivers, thereby giving
engineers the security of a tested software layer driving some of the
industry's most advanced hardware.

Canton, MA: (February 1, 2002)-Until today, getting a LabView application
running under Linux to talk directly to data-acquisition hardware was
complicated at best and sometimes impossible. Indeed, National Instruments
has no Linux drivers whatsoever for its data-acq hardware; and while
open-source drivers are available, you still face the problem of getting them
running and then finding a LabView VI to interface to them. Now, thanks to
PowerDAQ LabView for Linux -- a set of free, fully supported drivers that
interface with PowerDAQ I/O hardware for both the PCI bus and PXI bus --
users can quickly create LabView programs under Linux with full confidence
that their applications run optimally and reliably. In addition, for the
first time anyone can modify existing Windows-based LabView programs and run
them under Linux in just a few moments. 

This driver set also offers users something far beyond mere compatibility
with Windows applications: now they can control Linux-based realtime
processes from LabView. To do so, they first add realtime extension to Linux,
create the realtime I/O portions of an application (based on UEI's existing
Linux drivers for standard programming langauges), then use third-party VIs
to interface LabView to the realtime module. In this way, users can run
applications in a reliable environment, eliminating the worries associated
with indeterministic Windows behavior, and still take advantage of LabView's
ability to implement sophisticated graphical interfaces and perform
post-processing. Further, such realtime applications require no additional
hardware beyond UEI's standard line of PCI and PXI I/O cards and modules. 

To ease programming, the driver set ships with an extensive set of example
LabView programs that illustrate how to work with these VIs and that also
serve as a basis for quickly creating custom applications. Among these almost
150 VIs are many that illustrate how to take advantage of the
high-performance features found in PowerDAQ hardware. 

UEI has tested the drivers to confirm that they work under any distribution
based on Linux Kernel 2.2.x and 2.4.x; our development staff has successfully
written programs that run under Mandrake 8.1, RedHat 6.2, 7.0 and 7.2,
Caldera 3.1 and Suse 7.2. The driver also runs under the RT-Linux and RTAI
realtime extensions, and the driver set comes with examples that show how to
employ PowerDAQ hardware in a realtime application. 

Drop-in Replacements 

The PowerDAQ LabView for Linux driver set consists of a family of VIs that
are either drop-in replacements for VIs from National Instruments or
enhancement VIs. 

The VIs fall into six major groups: 


a.. Analog input 

b.. Analog output 

c.. Digital I/O 

d.. Counter/timer 

e.. Multiboard 

f.. Simultaneous Subsystem Operation 

g.. Diagnostics 

Note that this driver set contains additional VIs that add enhanced
capabilities to LabView programs thanks to the high-performance capabilities
of PowerDAQ hardware. For instance, a simultaneous subsystem VI takes
advantage of the fact the PowerDAQ hardware contains an onboard DSP that
controls operation of the various subsystems. This approach not only frees up
the system CPU, it means that PowerDAQ operations don't have to wait for free
CPU cycles. For example, with this VI you can acquire data from eight analog
inputs, display results on a graph all the while running eight digital I/O
points. 

Also interesting is a VI that allows you to acquire and display data from
four PowerDAQ boards, simultaneously, and you can also stream data from these
boards to disk gap free. 

Several programming options 

Using these VIs, engineers have two primary options for creating powerful
Linux programs under LabView: 


h.. Take an existing LabView application that already uses PowerDAQ VIs for
Windows. Such a program should run immediately, unmodified, under Linux. 


i.. Take an existing LabView for Windows application written to work with
hardware from another vendor, even National, and port it to Linux. To see how
simple that process is, consider an example oscilloscope program that comes
with the LabView distribution CD. Using the icon view, drill down to the
lowest level where you'll find the VI that actually interfaces with the
hardware, in this case AI Wave.vi. Simply right-click on that block, and from
the popup menu select Replace. Now browse through the system to the
subdirectory holding the UEI VIs and select PDL AI Wave.vi to make the
substitution. Now you're ready to run the example program under Linux with
PowerDAQ hardware, and the entire process took only a minute or two. 

Price and Availability 

The PowerDAQ LabView for Linux driver supports all hardware in UEI's PowerDAQ
PCI and PXI hardware families. The VIs ship at no charge on the bundled
PowerDAQ Software Suite CD-ROM supplied with each board. Users can also
download the VIs from UEI's web site at
ftp://ftp.ueidaq.com/pub/software/linux/powerdaq_linux_2.0.tgz 

For further information on this product family and a full datasheet, as well
as details about the firm's complete line of data-acquisition and
signal-conditioning hardware and software, either call United Electronic
Industries at 800-829-4632 or check out at
http://www.ueidaq.com/products/.Regards,

John Toto
United Electronic Industries, Inc.
"The High-Performance Alternative "

611 Neponset St.
Canton, MA 02021
Tel.: (781) 821-2890, ext. 229;  Fax: (781) 821-2891
http://www.ueidaq.com