Albert Roseiro

Actually you do not need to buy any SW from NI. Just download then install their Visa drivers free software so when you connect their GPIB-USB then your computer will communicate both ways with your TDS. It is free, works on many platforms (as mentioned I've done on MacOS) then you'll decide what you want to use as a high level software. For example once the drivers are installed, you can then use your Python script or Unix programs in C or just stay low level through the basic NI suite. It all depends how you like to program, to interface but what is crystal clear, these 1990's old TDSxxx oscilloscope do interface very well with NI even though modern computers OS.

I've not use this free tool but it seems to work very good for Windows, please check this man provides GPIB tool kit which could satisfy your need. You might check as well my Github repository TDS repair GPIB tools which is more oriented for repair and troubleshoot the serie of these TDS oscilloscopes.

Hello Alberto,

Actually your question applies to the complete serie of TDS500/600/700/C/D where myself has been using few TDSxxx/C/D's as well as repairing few for a few of my customers in France (University laboratory) and Germany (private laboratory).

My advice is to purchase a National Instruments GPIB-USB interface which works very good wether on reading, writing, bandwidth, Python and others. Myself has chosen to use MacOS for many decades as I'm using Tektronix for many decades, the GPIB-USB from NI works wonderful with my MacBook Air even with recent OS (i.e. Mojave).

There are few exception like if you need to access the EEPROM of the acquisition board (sensitive) where only the floppy disk will work but that is tricky and dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. Otherwise whatever topic to interface a compute with the TDS500/700 including your TDS600 will work quick, safe and easy with a GPIB-USB interface.

As for the Console port and/or RS232 use, it is really more to troubleshoot if failure of the oscilloscope as opposed to read/write data between these oscilloscopes and any computer (Windows, MacOS and Lunix).

Best regards, Albert