Technical data

Message Communication and System Functions 5
Agilent Infiniium 9000 Series Oscilloscopes Programmer's Reference 101
only talk when it has received a valid query message, and therefore has
something to say. The computer should only attempt to read a response
after sending a complete query message, but before sending another
program message.
Protocol Operation
When you turn the oscilloscope on, the input buffer and output queue are
cleared, and the parser is reset to the root level of the command tree.
The oscilloscope and the computer communicate by exchanging complete
program messages and response messages. This means that the computer
should always terminate a program message before attempting to read a
response. The oscilloscope will terminate response messages except during
a hard copy output.
After you send a query message, the next message should be the response
message. The computer should always read the complete response message
associated with a query message before sending another program message
to the same oscilloscope.
The oscilloscope allows the computer to send multiple queries in one
query message. This is called sending a "compound query". Multiple
queries in a query message are separated by semicolons. The responses to
each of the queries in a compound query will also be separated by
semicolons.
Commands are executed in the order they are received.
Protocol Exceptions
If an error occurs during the information exchange, the exchange may not
be completed in a normal manner.
Suffix Multiplier
The suffix multipliers that the oscilloscope will accept are shown in
Table 2.
NOTE
Remember this Rule of Oscilloscope Communication
The basic rule to remember is that the oscilloscope will only talk when prompted to, and it
then expects to talk before being told to do something else.