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Chapter 1 Introduction and Quick Start
© National Instruments Corporation 1-5 PCI-MXI-2 for Linux
PCI bus to the VMEbus. The VME-MXI-2 can automatically determine if
it is located in the first slot of a VMEbus chassis and if it is the MXIbus
System Controller.
Also, the VXI-MXI-2 and VME-MXI-2 automatically terminate the
MXIbus if installed as the first or last device in the MXIbus. If installed
in the middle of the MXIbus, both the VXI-MXI-2 and VME-MXI-2
automatically disable MXIbus termination. In addition, you can have up to
64 MB of onboard DRAM on the VXI-MXI-2 and VME-MXI-2 modules
that can either be shared with the VXI/VMEbus and MXIbus or used as a
dedicated data buffer.
The PCI-MXI-2, VXI-MXI-2, and VME-MXI-2 products achieve
high-performance block transfer rates by integrating the MITE custom
ASIC, a sophisticated dual-channel DMA controller with standard
interfaces for VXI, VME, MXI, and PCI. By using MITE DMA to transfer
data and commands to and from devices, the MITE frees up a computer’s
microprocessor to perform other tasks such as data analysis and
presentation. In addition to DMA, the MITE incorporates both the new
Synchronous MXI protocol and VME64 MBLT (8-byte block transfers in
which both the address bus and data bus are used to transfer data) directly
into the ASIC to perform the fastest transfer operation to instruments.
Software Description
The NI-VXI/NI-VISA bus interface software for the PCI-MXI-2 and Linux
includes a Resource Manager, graphical and text-based interactive VXI
resource editor programs, a comprehensive library of software routines for
VXI/VME programming, and graphical and text-based interactive control
programs for interacting with VXI/VME or VISA. You can use this
software to seamlessly program multiple-mainframe configurations and
have software compatibility across a variety of VXI/VME controller
platforms.
NI-VISA has a comprehensive library of software routines not only for
VXI/VME programming, but also for GPIB, GPIB-VXI, and serial. You
can use this software to program instruments connected via different types
of interfaces.