GPIB system and method which performs autopolling using heuristics

Abstract

A system and method for GPIB autopolling of GPIB devices. A computer is coupled to one or more GPIB instruments through a GPIB to analyze, measure or control a process or unit under test. The computer includes a GPIB controller which monitors activity of the GPIB devices on the bus and produces heuristic information regarding the past behavior of the GPIB devices, such as a queue of one or more GPIB device IDs sorted by how recently each device was accessed. The heuristic information produced is stored on a memory and/or hard drive of the computer. A service request (SRQ) line assertion triggered by one or more GPIB devices may be received. The GPIB controller performs autopolling on the GPIB devices as ordered in the queue to determine which of the devices asserted the SRQ. If no queued devices asserted, the remainder of the devices are polled in arbitrary order.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.