help w/ simple GPIB prog.

[whoopsi]

Hi,
   Could someone give me some simple commands for communicating with
GPIB devices. All I want is to aquire values from a multimeter/fiber
optic attenuator/and a power meter. Nothing too complex. I was able to
do so using Matlab (however, I was using the serail port) and
communicating via SCPI language, but now the computer I'm using doesn't
have Matlab, so I'm trying to learn with Python. I've downloaded and
installed: ActivePython_2.4, pyserial-2.2, and
gpib-devices-0.0.4.win32.exe. I have read some beginner's guides to
python, but they don't discuss GPIB programming much.
   I thought I would simply be able to open a port, and send SCPI
commands to configure and aquire values. But when I tried to run GPIB
.py files from gpib-device-0.0.4 I got an error: "symbol 'ibsta' not
found". Doing some searching I found that ibsta was refering to a
library for GPIB (I'm assuming some .dll from a driver) and wrapping
them???. But these instruments as far as I know don't need drivers.

The instruments I'm using are:
   -PC w/ WIN2k
   -Keithley 2000 multimeter
   -HP 8156A optical attenuator
   -ILXLightwave Fiber Optic Power Meter

Essentially what I would like to do is simply run the attenuator
through different dB values and measure the voltage using the
multimeter. And possibly later integrating the power meter.
    If you could help me I would appreciate it, and please forgive the
above longwindedness. thanks.
    -Allen