Agilent Technologies announces new interface

Agilent Technologies Inc. has announced its USB-to-RS232 interface for connecting up to four test instruments from the USB port on a PC notebook or desktop.

The Agilent E5805A claims to provide easy, direct connection of up to four RS232 instruments or devices at baud rates up to 230 Kb/s per serial port. There are no switches to set, no PC cards to install, and no external power supplies required.

The Agilent E5805A is a standard PC plug-and-play device that is automatically detected and configured when connected to a computer's USB port. The included software makes the four RS232 ports appear as additional local (Windows® COM) ports on the computer. Also included are the test industry-standard software and drivers, and VISA I/O Libraries to enable instrumentation-style commands for RS232 control.