Specifications

A-1
Appendix A. Glossary
A.1 Terms
AC see VAC.
A/D analog-to-digital conversion. The process that translates analog voltage
levels to digital values.
accuracy a measure of the correctness of a measurement. See also Section
A.2.1 Accuracy, Precision, and Resolution.
Amperes
(Amps) base unit for electric current. Used to quantify the capacity
of a power source or the requirements of a power consuming device.
analog data presented as continuously variable electrical signals.
ASCII abbreviation for American Standard Code for Information Interchange
(pronounced "askee"). A specific binary code of 128 characters
represented by 7 bit binary numbers.
asynchronous the transmission of data between a transmitting and a receiving
device occurs as a series of zeros and ones. For the data to be "read"
correctly, the receiving device must begin reading at the proper point in
the series. In asynchronous communication, this coordination is
accomplished by having each character surrounded by one or more start
and stop bits which designate the beginning and ending points of the
information (see Synchronous).
baud rate the speed of transmission of information across a serial interface,
expressed in units of bits per second. For example, 9600 baud refers to
bits being transmitted (or received) from one piece of equipment to
another at a rate of 9600 bits per second. Thus, a 7 bit ASCII character
plus parity bit plus 1 stop bit (total 9 bits) would be transmitted in 9/9600
sec. = .94 ms or about 1000 characters/sec. When communicating via a
serial interface, the baud rate settings of two pieces of equipment must
match each other.
Beacon Interval a signal broadcasted to other devices in a PakBus® network
to identify the “neighbor” devices. A beacon in a PakBus network helps
to ensure that all devices in the network are aware of the other devices that
are viable. If configured to do so, a clock set command may be
transmitted with the beacon interval. This function can be used to
synchronize the clocks of devices within the PakBus network. See also
PakBus and Neighbor Device.
binary describes data represented by a series of zeros and ones. Also describes
the state of a switch, either being on or off.
CF abbreviation for CompactFlash®, a data storage card that uses flash
memory.
code a CRBASIC program, or a portion of a program.
constant a packet of CR1000 memory given an alpha-numeric name and
assigned a fixed number.