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PAGING OPERATION
Paging transactions are transmitted in blocks of characters, where one transaction is sent per block. Each block sent by
the Host Device is acknowledged by the paging system. The Host Device must wait for this acknowledgement before
sending the next block. The
WaveWare v
8
Paging System
provides acknowledgement in the form of an
<ACK>
character.
The
WaveWare v
8
Paging System
supports
TAP
message blocks up to 253 characters in length, with a 235 to 244
character message, from 1 to 10 characters for ID (pager number), plus 5 control characters, and a 3 character
checksum. (Message field length is restricted as follows: when a 1 character ID is used, a 244 character message can be
accommodated, and so on, for a total of 253 characters, such that when a 4 character ID is used, a 241 character
message can be accommodated. The maximum ID field length of 10 causes a maximum message field length of 235
characters). A block always carries two fields with their associated carriage returns. The message field may be empty,
but its carriage return must be included in the data block. The
TAP
message block format is as follows:
<STX>ID<CR>Message<CR><ETX>Checksum<CR>
The
ID Field
is a one to ten character pager number. Leading zeroes are not required. The Message field accommodates
up to 235 alphanumeric characters. The Checksum field provides a checksum for the previous portion of the
TAP
message block. See
Appendix C – TAP Checksum Calculation
, for sample code to create the checksum field.
The Message field can be formatted as follows:
For Alphanumeric
paging messages, all 7-bit ASCII “non-control” characters are valid except ^, ~, and _
(underscore)
For Numeric
paging messages, valid characters are the numbers 0 through 9, - (hyphen), and space
Control Characters
can be embedded into paging messages so that high end alpha pagers and paging data
receivers can respond with formatted screen displays and with formatted serial output, as required. Control
characters (typically
<CR> and <LF>
) can be embedded in messages by using the Transparency Option.
The Transparency Option replaces a non-printable control character with the
SUB
(Hex 1A) character
immediately followed by the control code offset by 40 Hex. See
Appendix F - Embedded Control
Characters
for details on how to embed control characters in paging messages.
The WaveWare
TAP Interface
supports ID field lengths from 1 to 10 digits. The ID field can be formatted using two
different methods, as follows:
Method 1
- ID field lengths from 1 to 4 digits will cause a pager database lookup. ID fields of this format must
contain numeric digits only. The numeric ID value will be compared to the ID values stored in the
WaveWare
v
8
Paging System
’s onboard pager database.
Method 2
- ID field lengths from 5 to 10 digits will cause Extended ID processing. Extended ID processing
assumes that the last 3 digits of the ID field define paging message encoding attributes, while the preceding
digits define the pager capcode. Extended ID processing allows you to avoid the process of configuring a
pager database in the
WaveWare v
8
Paging System
. See
Appendix E – Extended ID Processing
for
details on how to format the ID field.
When the
Host Device
delivers a
TAP
Message Block to the
WaveWare v
8
Paging System
, if the message block is
properly formatted, and a 1 to 4 digit ID field matches the pager database, the paging system will respond with an initial
response code as follows:
211 Page(s) Sent Successfully<CR>
Tap Interface Specifications Continued on next page…
