F.W. Bell 7030, Instruction Manual

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F.W. BELL Model 7030 Gauss/Tesla Meter Instruction Manual
7-14 Section 7 – Remote Operation
IEEE-488.2
“COMMON”
COMMAND
SYNTAX The “common” commands are recognized and acted upon in a similar
manner by all IEEE-488.2 instruments, whether a DVM, scope, frequency
meter, tesla meter, etc. These are the syntax rules:
1) A common command always begins with an asterisk character (*) followed
by a three or four character acronym and possibly one other parameter. For
instance a command to reset the instrument is *RST.
2) The commands are not case sensitive. For instance the *RST, *rst and
*rSt commands are valid.
3) If there is a fourth character in the acronym it will always be a question
mark (?) and indicates that information is being requested from the
instrument. For instance a command to read the model number and
manufacturer of the instrument is *IDN?.
4) If a parameter follows a command it must be separated from the acronym
by at least one space. The parameter is the ASCII representation of a
decimal integer. For instance if the parameter to be sent is binary 1100, the
actual parameter sent would be the two ASCII characters 12, since binary
1100 = decimal 12. If you were to send the four ASCII characters 1100 it
would be interpreted as decimal 1100 (eleven hundred).
5) A number returned from the instrument is an ASCII representation of a
decimal integer. For instance if the instrument returns the ASCII string 345
the number is decimal 345 (three hundred forty five), which translates to 159
hex.
6) Multiple commands can be sent in one string. The commands must be
separated by semicolons (;). For instance, *RST;*IDN? first resets the
instrument and then requests model/manufacturer information. If more than
one of the commands in the string requests information from the instrument,
the instrument’s response will also have semicolons separating the
responses, such as 345;0;10.