To establish basic or advanced communication with your instruments, refer to the following sections.

Basic Communication (Query/Write/Read)

To establish basic communication with your instrument, use the NI-488.2 Communicator, as follows:

1. If you have not already done so, scan for connected instruments.
2. >  Start Measurement & Automation Explorer.
3. In Measurement & Automation Explorer, expand the Devices and Interfaces directory by clicking on the + next to the folder.
4. Select your GPIB interface.
   Measurement & Automation Explorer displays the connected instruments in the right window pane.
5. Right-click on your GPIB instrument and select Communicate with Instrument from the drop-down menu that appears.
   The NI-488.2 Communicator dialog box appears.
6. Type a command in the Send String field and do one of the following:
• To write a command to the instrument then read a response back, click on the Query button.
• To write a command to the instrument, click on the Write button.
• To read a response from the instrument, click on the Read button.
• To configure special requirements for end of string (EOS) modes for your device, click on the Configure EOS button.

To view sample C/C++ code that performs a simple query of a GPIB instrument, click on the Show Sample button.

Advanced Communication