Driver Installation for old ISA and PCI cards

This article describes the driver installation for old (obsolete) ISA and PCI cards from Spectrum for Windows operating systems. The article covers all legacy PCI.xxx cards and all ISA cards PADxxxx and DAPxxxx:

PCI cards

• PCI.208 - 8 bit digitizer with 1 channel 200 MS/s or 2 channels 100 MS/s for PCI bus. For a replacement see M2i.2030
• CPCI.208 - 8 bit digitizer with 1 channel 200 MS/s or 2 channels 100 MS/s for CompactPCI bus. For a replacement see M4x.4420
• PCI.212 - 12 bit digitizer with 1 channel 80 MS/s or 2 channels 40 MS/s for PCI bus. For a replacement see M2p.5941-x4
• PCI.412 - 12 bit digitizer with 4 channels 10 MS/s or 40 MS/s for PCI bus. For a replacement see M2p.5922-x4 or M2p.5932-x4

ISA cards

• DAP116 - 1 channel arbitrary waveform generator with 12 bit for ISA bus. For a PCI replacement see M2p.6570-x4
• PAD52 - 8 bit digitizer with 2 channels 50 MS/s for ISA bus. For a PCI replacement see M2i.2020
• PAD82a - 8 bit digitizer with 1 channel 200 MS/s or 2 channels 100 MS/s for ISA bus. For a PCI replacement see M2i.2030
• PAD82b - 8 bit digitizer with 1 channel 250 MS/s or 2 channels 125 MS/s for ISA bus. For a PCI replacement see M4i.4420-x8 or M4i.2211-x8
• PAD242 - 8 bit digitizer with 1 channel 400 MS/s or 2 channels 200 MS/s for ISA bus. For a PCI replacement see M4i.4450-x8 or M4i.2211-x8
• PAD1232 - 12 bit digitizer with 2 channels 10/30/40 MS/s for ISA bus. For a PCI replacement see M2p.5921-x4 or M2p.5931-x4
• PAD1616 - 16 bit digitizer with 16 channels 100/300 kS/s for ISA bus. For a PCI replacement see M2p.5913-x4
• PAD164 - 16 bit digitizer with 1 channel 5 MS/s for ISA bus. For a PCI replacement see M2p.5911-x4
• PCK400 - clock generator card for ISA bus. No replacement.
• PTime-2 - 2 channel time measurement card. No replacement.

Driver crosss reference

The following table gives you an overview of which driver has to be selected from the download section for the different operating systems

Download drivers

The drivers and also datasheets and manuals for the old products are found on the standard download pages from Spectrum. Please go to the download page and select Old Products as series and then either PCI or ISA as family. On the right the supported cards are listed.

Please select the appropriate download under Windows or Linux tab and proceed with the installation.

How to install drivers for ISA cards for Windows NT/2000/XP

The driver is installed using the Win NT driver installer found in the download section as Windows NT/2000/XP driver. For installation please follow exactly these steps. You find the installation description in the manual also. Messing up with the setup may lock your system:

1. Login as ADMINISTRATOR or with another account having the right to install drivers and to change the registry.
2. Start the setup program from the driver package.
3. The installation routine will install the kernel mode driver, the 32 bit windows DLL and some utilities in the program folder ?Spectrum GmbH?. It will also update the registry.
4. Do not restart the computer instead cancel the reboot
5. Delete all PCI cards from the list with the DrvConfg tool
6. Fill in the ISA boards starting at the top most position
7. Check the base address very carefully with the manual. Be sure to enter the exact base address that is setup on the hardware.
8. Restart the system
9. If the service does not start correct (A message in the event log from the service SpcDrv.SYS), the driver is not setup correctly. Please run DRVCONFG.EXE and check the setup of all boards.

How to install drivers for mixed useage of PCI and ISA cards

1. Login as ADMINISTRATOR or with another account having the right to install drivers and to change the registry.
2. Start the setup program from the driver package.
3. The installation routine will install the kernel mode driver, the 32 bit windows DLL and some utilities in the program folder ?Spectrum GmbH?. It will also update the registry.
4. Do not restart the computer instead cancel the reboot
5. Delete all PCI cards from the list that are not used with the DrvConfg tool. If there are two PCI and two ISA cards installed all PCI cards except the first two must be deleted. It is mandatory that the PCI cards come first in the list!
6. Fill in the ISA boards behind the PCI boards in the list. If using two PCI boards and two ISA boards, the ISA boards must be set-up on position 3 and 4.
7. Restart the system
8. If the service does not start correct (A message in the event log from the service SpcDrv.SYS), the driver is not setup correctly. Please run DRVCONFG.EXE and check the setup of all boards.