IBM PC-Based IEEE-488 Bus Controller

This paper describes the design of a low-cost IEEE-488 multifunction bus controller board for the IBM Personal Computer (PC). The hardware interconnections of the bus controller chip with the IEEE-488 bus and the IBM PC bus are highlighted. In addition to the IEEE-488 control functions, the board is augmented with the two extra features of programmable interval timer and programmable digital input/output.. A software package is written with over 30 macro commands. The user can utilize these macro commands to implement most common IEEE-488 control functions. An example is given to configure and implement a multimeter as a programmable ohmmeter.