Sonifex NICA X, Reference Manual

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NICA X Reference Manual
40
C
HAPTER
8 R
EMOTE
C
ONTROL
P
ROTOCOL
8.1 - Revision
This chapter is Revision 3 of the remote control specification.
8.2 - Introduction
The remote control port provides full control of the NICA X. All operations available from the front panel are
available through this port with the exception of Factory Level commands.
For brevity, the remote control device has been referred to throughout this document as a “PC”, but obviously this
is all just as relevant for any computer system using RS232 communications.
If the NICA X unit is linked to a NICA X unit at the far end then it is possible to control the functions of the far end
unit through the inband data channel if this feature has been enabled.
8.3 - Protocol
The character format is fixed at 9600 baud, no parity, 8 data bits and 1 stop bit.
All messages to the NICA X consist of up to 84 characters followed by either a CR, or by ETX BCC, where BCC is
the exclusive OR sum of all characters in the message and 0xff.
The NICA X always answers within 7 seconds and never transmits except in answer to a received message. The
end style sent by the NICA X matches that received; if no valid end was detected, no answer is sent.
The PC must not start sending another message until the last character of the previous response has been fully
received, or 7 seconds have elapsed since the last message was sent and no reply was received.
All commands consist of the following :
Unit ID - 0 for local unit, 1 for far end unit.
‘:’
Command mnemonic- three character upper case alpha numeric, from the list below.
Parameter list- the number of parameters and their meaning are command dependent. Parameters are separated
by a comma. Empty parameters can be signalled by the lack of data between commas, or empty parameters at
the end of a parameter list can be omitted if the command allows. Any non-printing character other than CR or
ETX is just stripped as white space, but must not appear within a parameter. Name parameters, e.g. book names,
must be enclosed within quote marks and can contain spaces as valid characters.
Responses consist of the following :
A decimal response code.
If required, a comma followed by a returned result list with parameters separated by commas.