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The following description lists companies (there are others, I am sure) that manufacture ISA bus A/D and in some cases digital I/O boards. PC bus boards usually are furnished with software and drivers that allow them to be used directly and from within custom Visual Basic, C, C++, or Delphi programs. Most may be used with ActiveX controls such as Measurement Studio™. ISA bus boards are not "Plug and Play." That is, you open the PC, determine what I/O ports and IRQs are available, and configure the board to match these available resources before inserting it and using it. Usually this involves using dipswitches on the board. This manual "fiddling" can be tricky, and the 16-bit ISA bus has more limited performance than the 32-bit PCI bus. Thus, ISA bus boards are seeing limited new applications. However, there is still life in some older lower performance PCs, so they still can be considered if the inherent limitations are understood. National Instruments is well known for their extensive line of software products for data acquisition. However, they also have a variety of hardware. Computer Boards manufactures a series of A/D, D/A, and I/O products. These often are plug/software compatible with similarly numbered products from other popular manufacturers, notably Keithley. Keithley is one of the original leaders in manufacturing PC bus data acquisition products. Data Translation has a series of ISA bus boards and accompanying software drivers. CyberResearch is not so much a manufacturer as a reseller. However, they have a wide variety of industrial computers, displays, hardware and software that should be of interest. The variety of their offerings makes "one-stop shopping" easy. Industrial Computer Source also is a reseller of industrial grade hardware and software for data acquisition and control. Advantech is yet another source for industrial automation products, including those for data acquisition and control. Acquisition Control Communications Engineering / Systems (ACCES) sells a variety of hardware, including ISA bus expansion kits, for data acquisition and control. DATEL makes both PC based and non-PC based data acquisition hardware. These products tend to be a little more "high-end" than some other manufacturers. Intelligent Instrumentation was formerly part of Burr-Brown. Spun off to concentrate on data acquisition and control hardware and software II has a variety of ISA and non-ISA hardware. Analogic is a long time supplier of higher-end PC bus A/D board-level products. Omega Engineering has a huge number of products for industrial automation. They have a number of D/A, A/D and digital I/O cards for PCs. PLCs also are available from Omega. BSOF Software has several low-cost, general-purpose ISA bus boards. Gage Applied Sciences manufactures several ISA boards that provide very-high data acquisition rates. These are designed for PC based digital scope applications. SuperLogics ( previously Quatech) has several low to medium-cost ISA bus data acquisition boards. United Electronic Industries has a significant line of boards, including ones that support simultaneous sampling (something that is not always offered and that can be of real benefit in some applications). CONTEC Microelectronics sells ISA bus D/A boards, and an extensive line of industrial automation equipment. The specialize in industrial operator interface displays. PC-based data acquisition systems are available from VMIC. CircuitSpecialists has a full line of NuDAQ boards for ISA and PCI bus. VB software is available. |
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