Tegam 2411B, Operation Manual

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Chapter 8 Advanced Remote Operation
Data Format - Arbitrary Block Program Data
ARBITRARY BLOCK PROGRAM DATA
This data format is used to speed bus transfer in cases where large amounts of data are sent to or from a
device (such as waveform or buffer memory data in the 2411B).
Only the <DEFINITE LENGTH> block
data format is acceptable for RS-232 while both <DEFINITE LENGTH> and INDEFINITE LENGTH>
block data formats are acceptable for GPIB (IEEE488.2).
<DEFINITE LENGTH> - #zy..yx...x where z is a number 1-9, and represents the number of y digit ele-
ments. The y digits taken together as a decimal integer equal the number of 8-bit bytes that follow.
For example to send 4 data bytes<DAB> using the <DEFINITE LENGTH> format,
you could send:
#14<DAB><DAB><DAB><DAB>
or
#204<DAB><DAB><DAB><DAB>
<INDEFINITE LENGTH> -#0[x...x]<rmt> where x is an 8-bit byte of decimal value 0-255, and
<RMT> is the message terminator.
Refer to the Waveform Memory Format section for detailed instructions on how to download data into
the waveform memory of the 2411B.
8-14
In the binary definite block format, a block header precedes the waveform data.
The block header has the following format.
# 5 64000
Start of Even Number of Bytes to Follow
Data Block (64,000 bytes=32,000 points)
Number of Digits
to Follow
The 2411B arbitrary waveform generator represents binary data as 16-bit integers, which
is sent as two bytes. Therefore, the total number of bytes you send is always twice the
number of data points in the waveform (and it must be always be an
even number ). For
example, 64,000 bytes are required to download a waveform with 32,000 points.