Agilent Technologies 86100A, Programmer'S Manual, Page: 344 / 366

25-6
Waveform Commands
FORMat
This command sets the data transmission mode for waveform data output. This command
controls how the data is formatted when the data is sent from the analyzer and pertains to all
waveforms. The default format is ASCii.
ASCii
ASCII formatted data consists of ASCII digits with each data value separated by a comma.
Data values can be converted to real values on the Y axis (for example, volts) and transmitted
in floating point engineering notation. In ASCII:
• The value “99.999E+36” represents a hole level (a hole in the acquisition data).
• The value “99.999E+33” represents a clipped-high level.
• The value “99.999E+30” represents a clipped-low level.
BYTE BYTE formatted data is formatted as signed 8-bit integers. If you use BASIC, you need to cre-
ate a function to convert these signed bits to signed integers. In byte format:
• The value 125 represents a hole level (a hole in the acquisition data).
• The value 127 represents a clipped-high level.
• The value 126 represents a clipped-low level.
Data is rounded when converted from a larger size to a smaller size. For waveform transfer
into the analyzer:
• The maximum valid qlevel is 124.
• The minimum valid qlevel is
–128.
LONG LONG formatted data is transferred as signed 32-bit integers in four bytes. If WAVe-
form:BYTeorder is set to MSBFirst, the most significant byte of each word is sent first. If the
BYTeorder is LSBFirst, the least significant byte of each word is sent first. Long format is only
applicable to histogram data sources. In long format:
• The value 2046820352 represents a hole level (no sample data at the current data point).
• Long format is only valid with histogram data sources.
WORD
WORD formatted data is transferred as signed 16-bit integers in two bytes. If WAVe-
form:BYTeorder is set to MSBFirst, the most significant byte of each word is sent first. If the
BYTeorder is LSBFirst, the least significant byte of each word is sent first. In word format:
• The value 31232 represents a hole level (no sample data at the current waveform data
point).
• The value 32256 represents a clipped-high level.
• The value 31744 represents a clipped-low level.
For waveform transfer into the analyzer:
• The maximum valid qlevel is 30720.
• The minimum valid qlevel is
–32736.
Example This example selects the WORD format for waveform data transmission.
10 OUTPUT 707;":WAVEFORM:FORMAT WORD"
Query :WAVeform:FORMat?
The query returns the current output format for transferring waveform data.
Returned Format [:WAVeform:FORMat] {ASCii | BYTE | LONG | WORD}<NL>