Note: SuperLab 6.2.2 for Windows is the last version to support Measurement Computing I/O devices;
see this blog post.

Installing and using a Measurement Computing I/O card consists of the following steps:

• Installing the card in your computer
• Installing the software provided by Measurement Computing
• Connecting your equipment to the card

Installing the Hardware

The physical installation of the card is not covered in this tech note. Generally, you need to open your PC and insert the card into a PCI slot. Beware not to zap the board with static electricity!

Please refer to your I/O card’s manual for information regarding this first step.

Installing the Software

Your I/O card comes with a CD-ROM supplied by Measurement Computing. Refer to your I/O card’s manual for information regarding the software installation.

Once installed, you need to run InstaCal to verify that your I/O card is installed correctly and working. The I/O card should be board number 0. In most situations, this happens by default.

If InstaCal shows board number 0 to be a “DEMO-BOARD”, then:

• Right-click with the mouse on “DEMO-BOARD”. A menu appears.
• Select Remove Board.

This board must be removed before you add the new one.

• From the Install menu, select Add Board. A dialog appears.
• From this dialog, select your board model, e.g. PCI-DIO24. Click on OK.

At this point, InstaCal should show “Bd# 0 - PCI-DIO24 (pci slot …)”. If you cannot get InstaCal to “see” your board, please refer to the Measurement Computing documentation or their website for assistance.

Connecting Your Equipment to the I/O Card

The PCI-DIO24 I/O card provides 24 digital input and output lines. These are divided into 3 groups called “ports” and named Port A, Port B, and Port C.

SuperLab uses Port A for input and Port B for output. Port C remains currently unused. For input, lines must be “pulled low”, that is, connected to ground by a resistor. The diagram below illustrates how this is done for line A0 (pin 37). The same diagram applies for lines A1 to A7. The resistor’s value may range from 2.2 kiloohm to 5 kiloohm.

Cedrus highly recommends that all lines on Port A are pulled low even if you will not be using all 8 input lines. Better yet: connect unused lines directly to ground.

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Last Revision: Mar 15, 2022