# 1.3 Software Overview

1. New Features of Version 6
2. Features continued in Version 6
3. Features obsoleted by Version 6

The INES GPIB for Windows allows you to connect to the GPIB in many ways. You can choose from a set of programming language interface or use commercial available application development environments. In addition interfaces compatible to other vendors' GPIB interface solutions are available.

### 1.3.1 New Features of Version 6

While every attempt has been made to ensure compatibility to previous versions of INES GPIB for Windows the following major changes has been made.

Industry Standard Interface The industry-standard GPIB32.DLL (ibrd, ibwrt,...) style interface is now fully supported on the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 and Windows XP® operating systems. Existing applications run directly without modifications.

Enhanced Device Operation The software now supports standard conformant implementations of IEEE-488.2 compatible devices (instruments) via a new C++ interface class library.

Up to eight interfaces supported The count of concurrently operating interface cards per computer has been increased to 8 (eight).

New C++ API A native and easy to use C++ API has been added to the set of programming languages supported. The native C++ implementation of a GPIB API directly support the object oriented programming paradigm. The API provides classes for GPIB interfaces, devices, transfer parameters etc.

GNU Compiler Collection supported In addition to the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler, the popular GCC compiler (see www.mingw.org) is supported.

### 1.3.2 Features continued in Version 6

Programming Language Interfaces 32 bit for C/C++ ( Borland C 4.5, Borland C 5.0, Microsoft Visual C++ 2.0, Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0, Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 ) Visual Basic (4-6), Visual C++, Delphi(2-5), HT-Basic

Application Development Environments Agilent VEE, LabView 6+

### 1.3.3 Features obsoleted by Version 6

Version 5.1 is the last version supporting the 16-bit interface libraries and Windows 3.11, 95, 98, ME, NT4. Also, the WALI interface program is no more supported. The Online Manual media has been changed to HTML and PDF.