Drivers And Operating Systems

Certain ACCES cards don’t depend on the operating system and software. Our Remote ACCES line, including any device that connects to the computer via RS232, RS422, or RS485, our Ethernet attached Data Acquisition Systems, and external adapters like the CONV232/485 can be used with any operating system, no drivers needed.

Microsoft Operating Systems

• All ACCES ISA, PC/104, PCI, PCI Express, and related products, have support for DOS, and Windows versions from 98se through 8 /10 / 11 and beyond (limited support as far back as Windows 3.1).
• All ACCES USB products have support for Windows versions including 8 / 10 / 11 and beyond (limited support for 98se/Me/2000/XP/Vista/7).
• A full function driver is provided for our watchdog (WDG-CSM, PCI-WDG-CSMA, PCIe-WDG-CSMA) cards in Windows. It provides functions to start watchdog protection with a specific timeout, pet the watchdog, and cancel watchdog protection, and it can handle the “last-chance” IRQ by notifying the application or issuing a “soft” system shutdown, to prevent loss of data in case of a “shallow” lockup.
• All ACCES cards can be accessed directly under Windows using AIOWDM, and/or AIOUSB, which provide the power and flexibility of register-level control in a Win32 environment (including 64-bit).
• All source is open and provided: for all drivers, API libraries/DLLs, samples, demo and utility programs, etc.  If you want it we’ll even provide source for the settings programs!

Linux, Etc. Operating Systems

• ACCES serial COM cards are based on a standard 16550A or better UART, similar to the UARTs on motherboard COM ports, and can run under the same drivers. Use setserial for non-plug-and-play cards, or just use any recent kernel for all USB and PCI or PCI Express (and related) plug-and-play COM ports.
• All ACCES PCI/PCI Express and related cards can be accessed directly under Linux using APCI, which provides the power and flexibility of register-level control in a Linux environment. APCI uses a kernel module to achieve this access from any user level, but we also document the use of ioperm() and the I/O functions from <sys/io.h>, which allows programs run as superuser or root to do this without any additional drivers or code modules in the system.
• ACCES provides Linux samples for a number of cards, and instructions for converting our vast DOS C/C++ sample code library to Linux.
• Linux has many variants, distributions, kernels, and platforms. ACCES cannot guarantee our software automatically work with the latest or oddest flavors out there — but we do commit to supporting you. If you find you can’t get our existing code working in your specific Linux distribution, simply contact us, and we’ll work diligently with you to resolve the issue.

Other Operating Systems

• ACCES COM cards can be used under any operating system for the same reason they work under Linux: they’re based on a standard 16550A or better UART.
• We fully support direct register-level control, the basis of adaptation to any new environment, with manual documentation, samples, and technical support. If you’ve got a programmer for the high-powered operating system of your choice, we can show them how to use the card. Additionally, the existing source code for every piece of software ACCES provides is available to support your custom development efforts to the fullest.
• Check out our VxWorks support for all PCI, PCI Express devices, and USB, too!

Third-Party Software Suites

• ACCES provides specific drivers or examples for a number of cards in LabVIEW, MATLAB, and others. Please inquire for details..
• ACCES COM cards can be used under such suites for the same reason they work under Linux: they’re based on a standard 16550A UART.
• Many ACCES cards use other industry-standard chips, like the 82C55 digital I/O chip or the 82C54 counter/timer chip, and can take advantage of standard interfaces for these chips.
• Register-level support in the suite and/or the ability to use AIOWDM.dll or AIOUSB.dll (etc) allows the use of all ACCES cards via direct register-level control, which we fully support.