What is ATEasy ATEasy is a programming language and a rapid application development framework for electronics functional test, ATE, data acquisition, process control, and instrumentation systems. ATEasy is provided with tools to develop and maintain software components, including test programs, user interface (forms), and instrument drivers. The development environment provides a framework that resembles a real test system objects and provide placeholders to the test engineer to develop these software components. ATEasy is an open architecture environment and provides access to test & measurement industry standards including GPIB, VXI, PCI, Serial Communication, DLL, ActiveX, .NET assemblies, HTML, VXI Plug&Play Functions Panel drivers, IVI drivers, LabView VI, C Header.
History of ATEasy ATEasy v1.0 first introduced in July 1991 by Geotest (developed initially by Ron Yazma) and was running on Windows 3.0. Version 3.0 was the first 32 bit version (released 1996). Version 6.0 was released on October 2006.
The ATEasy Integrated Development Environment The Integrated development environment implements RAD Rapid Application Development environment using the built in compiler similar to the one found in . This results in short development cycles allowing the user to make a change in the code and test it without a long edit-compile-link-debug cycle. Once the development is done the development environment can create an executable (EXE file) that can be distributed with the ATEasy run-time engine (similar to Visual Basic). The IDE displays the framework in a tree like structure that shows the various project files (Program, System and Driver) and their components (Forms, Commands, Tests, Procedures, Types, Libraries, Events, IOTables).
The ATEasy Programming Language ATEasy programming language is similar to Microsoft Visual Basic and support event programming. However, the language has extensions and predefined classes that correspond to a test system. This includes ASystem (test system), ADriver (test instrument driver), AProgram (test program), ATest (test) and more. The language allows the user to create user defined driver, system and program statements that look like the following code:
DMM Set Function VDC ! driver command single instrument System Connect VDC to J1-30 ! system command , uses many instrument to implement DMM Measure (TestResult) ! measure is store to TestResult variable)
The language contains statements such as if-then-else, select-case, loop, try-catch, etc and support for features such as multi-threading, events, interrupts as in other modern programming. The internal library contains many functions as string manipulation, math, file I/O, PC resources, GPIB, VXI, serial communication etc. In addition, you can import and use ActiveX controls or objects, .NET assemblies, DLLs.
The ATEasy Test Executive The ATEasy test executive is a driver (TestExec.drv) that is plugged to the system files. The test executive provides a customized user interface to the end user (tester) and lets him run, debug, log results of the test programs. The Test Executive integrates with the Fault Analysis module (FaultAnalysis.drv) that analyzes at the end of the run the test results to provide suggestion to the operator what to replace in the faulty UUT in case the program test(s) failed.
Alternatives LabView+TestStand Agilent VEE Microsoft Visual Studio
References Geotest/ATEasy - Geotest web site describing ATEasy Getting Started Manual - ATEasy v6.0 Getting Started Manual (PDF) ATEasy Help File - ATEasy Help File (CHM) ATEasy Test Executive Help File - ATEasy Test Executive Help File (CHM) EE magazine article - Evaluation Engineering magazine article about ATEasy ATEasy and IVI - IEEE article about ATEasy and IVI ATEasy and Legacy Systems Migration - IEEE article about ATEasy and military legacy systems migration
This article fails to mention lab windows CVI by National Instruments as an alternative. Save yourslef the trouble and avoid ATEasy. There are many bugs in the IDE, and some are so bad they will crash your system. It is a very clumsy programming enviroment. The programing language is specific to this product offering NO portibilty.
Save yourself the headache and go with Labwindows CVI and stay in an ANSII C enviroment. The LabWinodws IDE is very intuative and STABLE! LabWindows also is less expensive and has a very much larger support base.
Guest
2. 20-11-2008 03:14
Don't know who Tiffany is but I have been using ATEasy for 18 years. It is a highly reliable test development software environment. It can be extended with any number of types of MS windows interfaces, from DLLs to .Net. One project that I easily developed with this software was a DO160 conducted emissions data aquisition and charting application. I developed a one button application that acquired an entire DO160 conducted emission scan from a spectrum analyzer and sent the data to excel, launched and excel macro and generated a complete log chart with limits. I have also developed ESS applications that run for days controlling a temperature chamber, performing tests and reporting status. ATEasy has been rock Solid.
Guest
3. 06-02-2009 23:25
I fully agree with Tiffany, I have never used an IDE that is so unstable. The programming envirement is really bad. You will spend more time resizing screen, rebooting when system crashes, and working around the IDE bugs. It may be more stable for small applications, but the more cod eyou have the more unstable the enviroment. STAY AWAY!!!!!!!
Guest
4. 18-02-2010 16:23
Great development tool for functional test. I'm using it 3 years now for 4 systems that we built and it works great, and saves a lot of time when debugging especially with this DoIt! button.
Guest
5. 30-01-2012 03:09
Having used National Instruments Environments, I was able to make a fair comparison between the two companies. ATEasy is unstable, clumsy, not intuitive. Many times it will lock up the computer and you are forced to reboot and lose a lot of work. I have seen it corrupt files when it locks up. I had to use it for about 4 years before we were able to switch over to National Instruments. Save yourself the trouble, and just go with the National Instruments IDE's LabVIEW or LabWindows CVI. I have used both and there is just no comparison, they are far superior, with much more support. if in doubt just compare the user forums.
