Description

Keep It Simple Stupid! The first principle of Engineering! With KISS-488 you get low-cost, no-fuss use of your instrument’s IEEE-488 (GPIB) capability directly in your web browser! Why wrestle with obsolete interfaces, drivers, and software? Work the tool, don’t let the tool work you!

The Problem: Many older best-in-breed instruments offer the IEEE-488 interface, also known as GPIB or HPIB. If you have tried to use it, you know it’s anything BUT simple. Expensive and bulky cables, an even more expensive board to go in your PC, yet more expensive software to talk to it, and a thoroughly confusing array of choices. Many of the available choices require the use of older computers and/or operating systems as well. These classic instruments are often available for pennies on the dollar, and KISS-488 makes it easy to communicate with them!

The Solution: Enter KISS-488. Plug it into the back of your instrument, and your instrument becomes a modern web server, where you can interact directly with the instrument, sending commands and displaying data in your browser. If the instrument has a hard copy option supporting HPGL (plotter language)or formats supported by your browser such as BMP, capture screen shots directly to your browser, ready to be pasted into documents, emailed, whatever you want!

KISS-488 also turns a simple instrument such as a voltmeter into a data logger, sampling and graphing data over longer intervals, displaying the data graphically, and exporting to spreadsheets or other tools via your web browser. The unit also provides a Telnet server whereby any standard communications software, Telnet client, or programming language that can use Telnet can interact directly with the instrument.

Most versions of Windows include Hyperterminal as well as a dedicated Telnet client, and most programming languages can use a Telnet port. Per the KISS principle, there is NOTHING to install on your PC or other platform. Anything with a standard web browser can now talk to the instrument. This allows instrument access via personal computers and laptops running any operating system that supports a standard web browser, or iPods, iPads, and smart phones.