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Micsig Tablet Oscilloscope tBook mini TO1104 review (100Mhz 4 channel 'scope)
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alm:
Your statement about LXI being telnet and VXI not being LXI does not make sense. LXI does not require the telnet service. The bare minimum required (see page 66) is a web interface and a discovery service. Telnet SCPI is optional (page 68), as is VXI-11 (same page). Hence my suggestion to try VXI-11, since telnet does not work and using NI-VISA for bare sockets seems odd.

I seem to recall NI-VISA shipping with some sort of VISA sniffer (NI Spy?). If it shows the connection string, you should be able to figure out the protocol NI-VISA uses (see page 68 of the LXI standard for examples of connection strings). You would need some sort of compatible Windows machine/VM to run their software.

As for why they are still using VXI-11 over telnet, because it has more features like group triggers and asynchronous SRQ. HiSLIP is a more modern standard built on top of  VXI-11.
nctnico:
My point is: if you need a whole lot of extra bloatware to send some simple text commands to an instrument then something is wrong. NI-VISA is a major pain in the ass to setup and (for example) the version required for the TO1000 isn't compatible with the Windows 7 version I have. So how to go from there on a random PC at a customer??
When I write software which talks to instruments I use RS232 ports and let my software do it's own detection. That way I can ensure my software works plug&play and there is no third party layer which can screw things up. Just keep things simple and they will work.
alm:
If you want to rant rather than solve the problem, go ahead.

While I do not love the various VISA frameworks, it is the industry standard and software from pretty much all instrument manufacturers, including Keysight and Tektronix/Keithley, uses it. For developers, the advantage is that it abstracts the interface to the instrument. You could be using serial, or USBTMC, or VXI-11, and the only thing you have to change is the connection string. So it is inevitable that any computer that does instrument control ends up with at least one copy of VISA installed, unless you exclusively run your own software. There are also (equally bloated) NI-VISA versions for MacOS and Linux if you prefer that to the Python VXI-11 implementation I suggested.
nctnico:

--- Quote from: alm on July 26, 2017, 11:20:18 am ---If you want to rant rather than solve the problem, go ahead.

--- End quote ---
The problem can be solved if manufacturers have some kind of SCPI over telnet (let's call that LXI and I really don't want to go into semantics). Sending data to a serial port or over a telnet socket is equally trivial in a modern programming language. Also there is very little difference if I need to configure a serial port, IP address or connection string so all in all the NI-VISA platform doesn't really solve any problem for me. It only adds more places where things can go wrong, discomfort to download the right version (after registration on NI's website) and additional installation time.
exe:

--- Quote from: nctnico on July 26, 2017, 11:27:52 am ---It only adds more places where things can go wrong, discomfort to download the right version (after registration on NI's website) and additional installation time.

--- End quote ---

Same here, plus don't want tons of bloatware on my computer. I prefer simple solutions if they work.
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