National Instruments NB-GPIB/TNT IEEE 488 Interface Board

The NB-GPIB/TNT is an Interface Board for IEEE 488. The NI NB-GPIB/TNT is manufactured by National Instruments. The NB-GPIB/TNT is designed for Macintosh NuBus Computers. Different functions of this IEEE 488 Interface Board include control, talking, and listening. To perform these functions, the board is equipped with a TNT4882C chip. The NB-GPIB/TNT is a fast device with data transfer rates up to 1.3 MB/sec. This transfer rate is achieved by using a 3-wire handshake protocol. The NB-GPIB/TNT supports the implementation of HS488 which is a high-speed GPIB protocol. HS488 further increases the data transfer rate of the board up to 2.3 MB/sec. The NI NB-GPIB/TNT additionally comes with FCC Class A certification through EMI standards.

The NB-GPIB/TNT Interface Board is similar to the NB-GPIB-P/TNT board. This version has NAT4882 and Turbo488 ASICs chips. The basic functions of both interface boards are the same. The NAT4882 chip is responsible for basic talking, listening, and control functions for the NI NB-GPIB/TNT interface board. The Turbo488 chip is a booster chip, which increases the read/write transfer speed of the IEEE 488 Interface Board is up to 850 kB/sec. 

The National Instruments NB-GPIB/TNT Interface Board is also capable of DMA transfers. An RTSI connector is used for this purpose. The NB-GPIB/TNT board can be connected to a maximum of 14 devices simultaneously. If a specific application requires more than 14 devices, NI GPIB extenders and GPIB expanders/isolators are also available. The compatible driver software for the NI NB-GPIB/TNT is NI-488.2 for MacOS.