Description of Commands for Interfaces
General
For the communication with the instrument, which is carried out in ASCII, a series of com-
mands is available. Each of these commands can be seen as an internal variable of the in-
strument, which can be accessed via the interface. In principle, each command can be used
for reading/writing and setting. During reading, only the command or the variable is
given; during writing, this command is assigned with another value with "=".
In principle, the commands are structured as follows:
Command [expansion] channel number
for reading
Command [expansion] channel number = parameter
for writing/setting
When writing/setting commands, the instrument confirms the execution of the command
by returning "OK". With reading commands, the reply occurs with the content of vari-
ables.
It is possible to combine several commands, which are separated by a comma, in one com-
mand line. The command line is processed from left to right. The receiving buffer can only
hold a maximum of 20 characters. Therefore, the response to several read commands in
one command line are several answers. When several write/set commands are in one com-
mand line, only the acknowledgement for the command line is output. Should a syntax er-
ror appear in the command line, then the message syntax error is output and the
processing of the command line is stopped. If in normal operation, an initialization com-
mand is sent, the instrument returns the message "permission denied".
Note: To test the communication with the instrument, terminal programs for DOS and
Windows are offered on the homepage (see section Customer Service).
Number Representation
In principle, the internal number representation is in integer format, i.e. in the value range
from +32767 to -32768. The 32767 and -32768 are interpreted as +OVER or -OVER
(over range or overflow of the number format). The sign is always given by the instrument
for those numbers marked with signs and can be omitted when writing/setting positive
numbers. The decimal point is represented as ASCII character (decimal 46).
Priorities
While making settings via the menu, there is no transmission via the interface.
Manual PM984
State July 2002 - All subject to change without notice
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Summary of Contents for PM 984
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