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5. FIRMWARE COMMANDS AND RESPONSES
Software communication with the digiBASE-E takes place through the C
ONNECTIONS
software
layer. Connections is used by all ORTEC software, and the C
ONNECTIONS
Programmer’s Toolkit
(A11-B32) is available for other software development.
5.1. C
ONNECTIONS
In C
ONNECTIONS
, the communication consists of sending command records to the MCB API and
receiving response records from the MCB API. Both command and response records consist of a
sequence of printable ASCII characters followed by an ASCII carriage return. The single
exception to this rule is the “#B” response record for the WRITE command, which contains
binary integer numbers. All commands eventually respond with a percent response record (so
named because the response begins with an ASCII percent sign “%”) which signifies the
completion of the command. SHOW and STEP commands respond with a dollar response record
(which begins with an ASCII dollar sign “$”) followed by a percent response record. The
WRITE command can respond with multiple pound sign records (which begin with an ASCII
pound sign “#”) but eventually completes by sending a percent response record. All other
commands result in a single percent response record upon completion.
5.1.1. Command Records
Commands consist of a command header that may be followed by numeric parameter values.
The header consists of a verb or a verb and noun separated by an underscore; or a verb, noun,
and modifier, each separated by underscores. The verbs, nouns, and modifiers in the command
header are mnemonic words such as the verb ENABLE or the noun OVERFLOW that relate to
the function performed by the MCB API when it executes the command. The first four letters of
any word will always be enough to uniquely identify the word when composing commands for
an MCB API. For example, the command ENABLE_GAIN_STABILIZATION can be
abbreviated to ENAB_GAIN_STAB.
Numeric parameters follow the command header separated by one or more spaces. Specific
commands require up to three parameters, separated by commas, which specify numeric
quantities related to the operation of the MCB, such as live time or conversion gain. The
command SET_WINDOW 0,1024 has two parameters, 0 and 1024, which set the window of
interest to start at channel 0 and continue for 1024 channels.
Some parameters listed in the command dictionary are considered optional and are distinguished
from mandatory parameters by being surrounded by brackets in the command prototype line
(e.g., SET_WINDOW [start,length]). Commands that have optional parameters may be sent to
the MCB API without the optional parameters, in which case the behavior will be changed as
explained in the command description.
Summary of Contents for digiBASE-E
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