Program generator for GPIB instruments

A simple program generator (PG) has been developed that controls instruments on the IEEE-488 bus. The generator can (1) send strings over the bus, (2) read strings from the bus and write the strings to a file or the console, (3) read the status byte of a device on the bus and display the byte or a bit of the byte on the console, (4) display a message on the console, (5) execute a while loop using a predefined loop variable, and (6) execute a conditional statement that depends on data read from an instrument, the status byte of the instrument, or a bit of the status byte. The program asks questions, and the user´s responses produce code in the C programming language. The PG works with the National Instruments GPIB-PC interface card and interface routines