National Instruments

About: National Instruments is a company organization based out in Dublin, Ireland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Signal & Interface (computing). The organization has 1135 authors who have published 1719 publications receiving 35682 citations. The organization is also known as: NI & National Instruments Corporation.

System and method for connecting peripheral buses through a serial bus

Abstract: A Wide Area Serial PCI system for connecting peripheral devices to a computer. The WASP system includes a host computer system connected through a serial bus to a remote device. The serial bus can range from several meters to several kilometers or more. The host computer system includes a CPU and memory, and also includes a first Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, also referred to as the local PCI bus. A primary bridge according to the present invention is coupled to the first PCI bus. The primary bridge includes PCI interface circuitry for interfacing to the first PCI bus. The remote device is located remotely from the computer system and comprises a second or remote PCI bus and one or more peripheral devices coupled to the second PCI bus. The remote device also includes a secondary bridge coupled to the second PCI bus. The secondary bridge includes PCI interface circuitry for interfacing to the second PCI bus. The serial bus is coupled between the primary bridge and the secondary bridge. Each of the primary bridge and secondary bridge include parallel/serial transceivers for converting parallel data generated on the first PCI bus and second PCI bus, respectively, to serial data for transmission on the serial bus and for converting serial data received from the serial bus to parallel data for generation on the first PCI bus and second PCI bus, respectively. The primary bridge and the secondary bridge collectively implement a PCI—PCI bridge register set.

Automatically generating a graphical program with a plurality of models of computation

Abstract: A system and method for automatically generating a graphical program or a portion of a graphical program in response to receiving user input. The user input may specify functionality of the graphical program or graphical program portion to be generated. In response to the user input, a graphical program (or graphical program portion) that implements the specified functionality may be automatically generated. The graphical program may include a plurality of computational models. Thus, different graphical programs may be generated, depending on the user input received.

Diagram with configurable wires

Abstract: Configuring wires/icons in a diagram. The diagram may be an executable diagram such as a graphical program or a system diagram. The diagram may include a plurality of icons that are connected by wires, and the icons may visually represent functionality of the diagram. The diagram may be executable to perform the functionality. Displaying the diagram may include displaying a first wire in the diagram, where the first wire connects a first icon and a second icon. Data transfer functionality may be specified for the first wire and/or the first or second icon in the diagram. The data transfer functionality may be visually indicated in the diagram, e.g., by appearances of the first icon, the second icon, the first wire, and/or icons displayed proximate to these components of the diagram.

Method of buffering bidirectional digital I/O lines

Abstract: A system and method for buffering bidirectional digital input/output (I/O) lines The system (eg, data acquisition system) may comprise a device including circuitry for buffering bidirectional digital lines A first integrated circuit (IC) of the device includes a first and a second bidirectional buffer coupled to a first bidirectional digital I/O line, and a second IC of the device includes a third bidirectional buffer The first IC and the second IC each include a control unit to control the driving direction of the corresponding bidirectional buffers independently to change the direction of the data flow through the first bidirectional digital I/O line from the output direction to the input direction or vice versa The driving direction of the bidirectional buffers are changed at different times in a particular sequence, and the order depends on whether the direction change is from the output direction to the input direction or vice versa