Re: [Phys-l] Free Programming Software

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

Do these operate under an old Mac's Unix, or must I purchase a new  
Intel one?

bc


On 2008, Aug 09, , at 10:12, John SOHL wrote:

> I have tried using the Visual BASIC Express Edition and it works  
> very nicely. I was experimenting with it to see if I could do data  
> acquisition. I have various DAC/ADC boards from Measurement  
> Computing that come with a library called Universal Library and I  
> was wondering if the Express Edition of the Visual BASIC software  
> was crippled so that you couldn't access external equipment. I'm  
> happy to say that is not a problem.
>
> I was using Visual BASIC Express Edition to run the USB port to  
> control a Measurement Computing MiniLab 1008 DAC system with no  
> problems. I am by no measure a "high end programmer." I had not  
> programmed in FORTRAN or Visual BASIC for over 12 years. But, I had  
> data collection going within a day. It is very helpful to spend a  
> few hours going through the Visual BASIC tutorials. After that, I  
> was up and running with the DAC system within a couple of hours of  
> starting to figure it out.
>
> I do a lot of programming in LabVIEW and consider myself to be  
> pretty good at it. But there are a lot of things I don't like about  
> LabVIEW, especially the attitude of the parent company, National  
> Instruments. LabVIEW is great software but some of their policies  
> (poor backwards compatibility for example) are very annoying. Also,  
> their academic discount program is nice to have, but it is not  
> cheap by our department's budgetary means.
>
> Visual BASIC Express Edition is a way around that expense. There  
> are two problems though:
> 1. As far as I can tell, you need the pro edition to make  
> executable files for distribution. Not a big deal since the  
> software is free anyway, but it would be an easier way to load a  
> program onto multiple machines if you could just make an exe file.
>
> 2. It is not the industry standard for data acquisition  
> programming. Just like Microsoft is the "industry standard" for  
> most computers on Earth, LabVIEW is the holder of the vast majority  
> of the market share for corporate data acquisition. I know for a  
> fact that at least one of our physics graduates was employed  
> expressly because of his physics background and LabVIEW skills  
> combined.
> Anyway, I have played with the free Visual BASIC Express Edition  
> and had a lot of fun with it and found it to be quite powerful.
>
> John
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> John E. Sohl, Ph.D.
> Professor of Physics
> Weber State University
> 2508 University Circle
> Ogden, UT 84408-2508
>
> voice: (801) 626-7907, fax: (801) 626-7445
> e-mail: jsohl@weber.edu
> web: http://physics.weber.edu/sohl/
>
> > > > "Bob Sciamanda" <trebor@winbeam.com> 8/8/2008 10:41 AM >>>
> Microsoft is making available, for free download, the 2008 Express  
> Editions of Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++ and other stuff!   
> Just go to:
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/Express/Download/
>
> Bob Sciamanda
> Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (Em)
> trebor@winbeam.com
> http://www.winbeam.com/~trebor/
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