Notes by John Miles (john@miles.io), 21-Apr-12: This is Kent Falkenstein's readme file for use with his original setup.exe program, which I no longer have. Insted of following his directions below, unzip the .ZIP file into the desired target directory, launch a DOS box in that directory (Start->Run cmd), and then run either setup_x64.bat or setup_x86_32.bat, depending on your Windows version. It may be necessary to launch the DOS box with administrative privileges. CAUTION: I can't be held responsible for anything weird that happens to your PC as a result of installing all of these obsolete .OCXs and .DLLs. I don't even know what most of them do. Back up your system first! (Note: even if not all of the .OCXs can be registered properly on a given PC, the PN3048.EXE program may still run. Some experimentation may be needed.) Tested under Windows XP (32 bit) and Windows 7 (64 bit). It may also be possible to run under Windows 2000 if you change all of the c:\windows references to c:\winnt in setup_x86_32.bat. The CALDATALO/CALDATAHI files are used by PN3048.EXE but can't be generated from within the program. They should be created in an RMB installation and transferred over, if possible. Otherwise your 3048A system will use the calibration data for mine, which may or may not be reasonably close to yours. Original PNReadme.txt content follows: ****************************************************************** PN3048 Readme file 4/8/2008 ****************************************************************** This file provides information on installing and running the PN3048 Phase Noise Measurement Software on your computer. Your computer should be running Windows XP and have a National Instruments GPIB controller card installed. CALDATALO and CALDATAHI ------------------------ Two files, CALDATALO and CALDATAHI contain calibration information that is specific to a particular 11848A and 3561A combination. The files which are installed with this program are initially blank, so no corrections will be made to any phase measurements. These files also contain information about the actual center frequencies of the two internal 10Mhz sources and the 400Mhz source that correct for any drift. Any drift in these sources will affect how the VCO Center Voltage and VCO Tuning Range are set. Installing the PN3048 Program ------------------------------ To install the PN3048 program, run setup.exe. The installation program will create a new folder in the Program Files folder named PN3048 where the main executable program file and a few support files are placed. Two PN3048 icons will be created. One will be placed on the Start Menu and the other on your desktop. A list of the installed files is included at the end of this file. Uninstalling the PN3048 Program -------------------------------- To uninstall the PN3048 System Software, double-click the icon Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. Find the PN3048 program in the list of programs to Install/Uninstall and click the Add/Remove... button. Windows will automatically remove the PN3048 program. Loading the Sample Result Files -------------------------------- The program comes with four sample files stored in the PN3048\Samples folder. There are three ways to load the sample result files for viewing. - Click on the File menu item and choose Open Result File... and select one of the four files that appear in the samples folder and then click OK to load it. - Alternatively, a list of recently loaded files is maintained at the bottom of the FILE menu. One of these files may be selected for viewing by clicking on the file name. - You may also use Fileview, located at the left of the main program window. Fileview is an explorer style view of your file system that provides easy one-click loading of files. Once a file is loaded, the New Measurement and Repeat Measurement buttons are grayed out. To clear the result file from memory and re-enable the two measurement buttons, click the Clear Trace button. The option "Display Multiple Result Files" in the View menu (and also in the Graph tab) allows more than one file to be loaded and displayed for side-by-side comparison of different measurements. The "Loaded Files" tab displays the filename and caption for each file and an amplitude readout for each trace when the cursor is moved over the display. Result File Formats -------------------- The program reads both the original HP BDAT file format generated by HP 9000 series computers and also the PC byte ordered file format. It determines the type (normal or reversed byte ordering) automatically. This may not be fool-proof as I only had a few files to test it on. The program writes the results of measurements in the same BDAT format, but with PC byte ordering. Operation --------- The main interface for the program is through a series of 8 tabs supplemented with five forms. The first four tabs, Measurement Type/Range, Instrument Parameters, Cal Process and Source Control contain all of the settings necessary to perform a measurement - with the exception of segment definitions which is in the Segment Tables form. These four tab correspond closely to the program structure HP used in the original 3048 software. For example, the Instrument Parameters tab has the same name and elements as the original software. So you may follow the same basic measurement setup and execution as provided in the original documentation. Default Settings ---------------- The PN3048 stores settings in the file PN3048.ini located in the C:\Program Files\PN3048 folder. The PN3048.ini file is loaded at startup and controls the initial behavior of the program. Generally any changes made in the program are saved when "OK" is clicked when exiting a form. However, changes made in the tab portion of the interface are not automatically saved. To save these, and make them the current defaults, click the Save Config. button or select File | Save System Configuration. To save the current setup for future use, select the menu item Save Config. As... and specify a new filename. This file will be stored with the file extension of ".CFG" and may then be loaded at a later time. Installed Files ------------------------------- The following files are stores on your computer during the installation: Installed in \PN3048 --------------------- PN3048.EXE Main Program file PN3048.ini Default instrument settings PN3048.cfg Configuration file (Serial Number) PN3048.hlp PN3048 Help file PNreadme.txt PN3048 Readme file (this original file, updated by JM) PNrelease.txt PN3048 Release notes (never updated after 1.00, so removed by JM) SampleSeg1.seg Sample segment definition file (apparently replaced by newer segment files) SampleSeg1.seg Sample segment definition file CALDATALO Calibration information specific to your 11848A/3561A (actually, *my* 11848A/3561A - JM) CALDATAHI Calibration information specific to your 11848A/3561A Installed in \WINDOWS\SYSTEM -------------------------------- COMCTL32.DLL dwSpy32.dll MFC42.DLL MSVBVM60.DLL MSVCRT40.DLL OLEAUT32.DLL OLEPRO32.DLL qpro32.dll Winhrt32.dll comdlg32.ocx csht32.ocx cslist32.ocx csspin32.ocx cstext32.ocx dwCbk32.OCX dwEasy32.OCX dwSbc32.OCX dwShk32.OCX MSCOMCT2.OCX MSCOMCTL.OCX MSCOMM32.OCX PTxSCP.ocx RICHTX32.OCX sg20o.ocx Sysinfo.ocx TABCTL32.OCX Threed32.ocx cwinstr.ocx Installed in \PN3048\DATA\SAMPLES ----------------------------- File1.res Sample data file File2.res Sample data file File3.res Sample data file File4.res Sample data file (JM: These are left in the SAMPLES subdirectory when you unzip PN3048.ZIP, and not copied anywhere when you run the installation .bat files.) Installed in \WINDOWS\START MENU\PROGRAMS\PN3048 ----------------------------------------------------------- PN3048 Help Link to PN3048 Help file. PN3048 ReadMe Link to the PN3048 ReadMe file. PN3048 Release Notes Link to Revision History File. PN3048 Link to the main program PN3048.EXE. (JM: These aren't installed anywhere. You'll want to manually create a shortcut to the copy of PN3048.EXE in the directory where you originally unzipped the file.)