GBIP
       General Purpose Interface Bus

	

	IEEE 488
GBIP
General Purpose Interface Bus
GPIB
Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus
HP-IB

    (GPIB, General-Purpose Interface Bus,
   HP-IB, Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus) An 8-bit parallel bus
   common on test equipment.

   The IEEE-488 standard was proposed by Hewlett-Packard in the
   late 1970s and has undergone a couple of revisions.  HP
   documentation (including data sheets and manuals) calls it
   HP-IB, or Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus.

   It allows up to 15 intelligent devices to share a single bus,
   with the slowest device participating in the control and data
   transfer handshakes to drive the speed of the transaction.
   The maximum data rate is about one megabit per second.

   Other standards committees have adopted HP-IB (American
   Standards Institute with ANSI Standard MC 1.1 and
   International Electro-technical Commission with IEC
   Publication 625-1).

   To paraphrase from the HP 1989 Test & Measurement Catalog (the
   50th Anniversary version): The HP-IB has a party-line
   structure wherein all devices on the bus are connected in
   parallel.  The 16 signal lines within the passive
   interconnecting HP-IB (IEEE-488) cable are grouped into three
   clusters according to their functions (Data Bus, Data Byte
   Transfer Control Bus, General Interface Management Bus).

   In June 1987 the IEEE approved a new standard for programmable
   instruments called IEEE Std. 488.2-1987 Codes, Formats,
   Protocols, and Common Commands.  It works with the IEEE
   Standard Digital Interface for Programmable Instrumentation,
   IEEE 488-1978 (now 488.1).  HP-IB is Hewlett-Packard's
   implementation of IEEE 488.1.

   (1996-05-10)