ICS ELECTRONICS 4809A, Instruction Manual

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The 4899A accepts SCPI commands and command extensions to configure
its GPIB/Serial interfaces, to set the data formats and to transfer data. The
SCPI commands conform to SCPI Standard 1994.0 and provide an industry
standard, self-documenting form of code that makes it easy for the program-
mer to maintain the application program.
Table 3-3 shows the 4899A’s SCPI command tree. The command tree uses
portions of the SCPI SYSTEM, STATUS, FORMAT, INITIATE, ABORT
and CALIBRATE subsystems. The 4899A and 4809A follow SCPI’s hier-
archal ‘tree like’ structure which starts with a root keyword and branches
out to the final action keyword. Each command can be used as a query
except where noted. The SCPI commands are not case sensitive. The
portion of the command shown in capitals denotes the abbreviated form of
the keyword. Either the abbreviated or whole keyword may be used when
entering a complete command. Bracketed keywords are optional and may
be omitted. There must be a space between the command and the parameter
or channel list.
STATus:QUEStionable? is the same as
STAT:QUES:EVEN? or also as
stat:ques?
Table 3-4 lists the SCPI keywords and describes their functions in detail.
Keywords other than those listed in the table or locked keywords will have
no effect on the 4899A’s operation and a command error will be reported.
Refer to Appendix A-1 for additional information about SCPI commands.
Note: A SCPI command that ends with a question mark ‘?’ is a query. All
queries should be followed by reading their response to avoid data loss.
3.8 PROGRAMMING GUIDELINES