Instrument Control (GPIB, Serial, VISA, IVI)
NI-488.2 Compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6
Solved!
Now that we can discuss this, has NI any information on their NI-488.2 compatibility with the new release of Mac OS X 10.6 (commonly known as Snow Leopard)? Can the kernel extensions be used in either 32 bit kernel or 64 bit kernel mode? Has NI done any testing of this? Any known problems?
The ni.com/mac page claims everything past OS versions 10.3.9 is supported but that seems to be a somewhat outdated claim.
So NI's official stance on support for Mac OS X 10.6 is a resounding silence?
The web page http://www.ni.com/mac shows:
Which Mac OS X versions does National Instruments support?
National Instruments supports Mac OS X Version 10.3.9 (Panther) and later.
Now "later" means 10.4.X, 10.5.X, and 10.6.X. That is very unambiguous and actually states 10.6 support. Of course being a reasonable person and knowing that the page has not been updated for a while, I don't believe that is the official position. Especially since many of the release notes specify 10.4.8 or later.
Yes, I have NI-488.2 version 2.5.6b0. Since I know that some parts of NI have planned for and tested against Mac OS X 10.6 the question was not what is in the old release notes that by agreement can't mention version 10.6, but what is the status of any internal testing? The release notes are out of date and thus the question is valid.
The general release notes for NI-488.2 are actually complete BS. I don't usually go this far, but since you are parroting them back to me, lets look at them in detail.
System Requirements
-------------------
NI-488.2 for Mac OS X requires the following:
- Mac OS X 10.4.x for PowerPC, where x is 8 or later
- Mac OS X 10.4.x for Intel, where x is 8 or later
- Mac OS X 10.5 for Intel
NI-488.2 fully supports Mac OS X 10.5.X on all PPC systems though this is left off. This statement directly contradicts the support statement I showed from the web page that suggest that 10.3.9 was supported (which I believe it is not). A lot of this depends on the VISA driver which has a much more correct statement
NI-VISA for Macintosh supports the following platforms:
- Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later, PPC and x86
- Mac OS X 10.5.x PPC and x86
and BTW, there is an undocumented "feature" in that installing for a PPC system will install a universal package, but installing for an Intel system will only install for that architecture. Just a warning that NI has adopted the exact opposite policy than Apple or most Mac developers.
Justin_E wrote:
We have done some basic testing though with the current rev of NI-488.2, and we haven't seen any issues. It's technically considered a beta for OS X 10.6 at this point, so we wouldn't advise using it on a production floor or similar environment just yet. Hope this helps!
Justin,
Yes, that helps. It was just that it had been preliminary tested as I assumed it had and that nothing obvious had popped up. Since I think the only current release is still labeled beta the status for OS X 10.5 and 10.6 seems to be the same?
From your drivers web page:
Drivers & Updates | VIEW ALL
- So I haven't really lost any ground here in having only a beta since that is all I have had for the last 2 years! In fact I don't think the GPIB drivers have gotten out of beta since you started supporting the Intel Macs! In looking back at my archive of drivers from NI I see version 2.4.4 from 2006 that is not tagged beta (or technology preview or some such cautionary term).I will put go ahead and start putting it out there and let NI know if problems develop. It can't be too much worse than the current release! 😞 And if it is, I can always back out and restore simply to my earlier configuration.
Sammy Z wrote:I'm was also told that the newer version of the driver will have 10.5 and 10.6 support.
Sammy,
I was happy until this last phrase! My understanding of the previous discussion was that the current version is a beta for both 10.5 and 10.6 are you implying that a newer one is coming or will fix a problem? The words "will have" are implying future.
AFAIK, version 2.5.6b0 is the current release and should support all OS from 10.4.8 to 10.6.1. I think this is along with VISA 4.5.1 which is the latest and greatest for that product.
I am testing it now. It seems to work, there is one worrisome thing since I have had the memory corruption issue occur twice since installing. Usually that only trashes the system about 1/month. To have it happen twice in a week is unusual. I am keeping an eye on this and will let folks know if it is more of a problem.
The good news if it repeatedly crashes then it will be easy to find and fix. The long term intermittent nature of this has made it impossible to track down.
NI claims it is a PPC only issue but this is not true:
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/09F9E93FA1B747D986257476004E1362
and
http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=140&requireLogin=False&thread.id=17436
as well as various SRQs.
