MBC-488 MetraByte GPIB/IEEE-488 Interface Board

The Keithley / MetraByte MBC-488 GPIB/IEEE-488 Interface Board plugs directly into any I/O expansion slot of an IBM PC?XT/AT, PS/2 Model 25 or 30, or compatible computer. A standard GPIB connector extends out the rear of the computer and connectors to any standard IEEE-488/GPIB cable.

A complete software driver interface is included on the MBC-488 disk. The driver is DOS resident, and is loaded into the computer's operating system each time the computer is turned on. The DOS resident driver is extremely easy to access, and is written to, or read from by using the same simple commands that are used to read or write to a disk file, (e.g. in Basica, Print commands for writes, input commands for reads). The File I/O type of driver eliminates the need for initializing and calling complex assembler subroutines. Since the device driver is interfaced just as a file would be, the driver is easy to use from any upper level language (e.g.. Basic, Fortran, Turbo-Pascal, etc.)

The MBC-488 will allow up to 14 other Talker/Listener devices. In addition, the software driver will support 1 or 2 MBC-488 boards at a time. The controller may be the PC or any of the other devices on the bus. The board is based on the industry standard NEC 7210 IEEE-488 interface chip and offers 100% compliance with the 1978 IEEE-488 interface standard. The use of the 7210 also assures compatibility with almost all third party software packages (e.g. ASYST, ASYSTANT GPIB).