User manual

2400 Series SourceMeter
®
User’s Manual SCPI Command Reference 18-47
Description These commands enable and disable the text message modes.
When enabled, a defined message is displayed. When disabled, the
message is removed from the display.
GPIB Operation — A user defined text message remains displayed
only as long as the instrument is in remote. Taking the instrument out
of remote (by pressing the LOCAL key or sending LOCAL 27) can
-
cels the message and disables the text message mode.
RS-232 Operation — A user defined test message can be cancelled
by sending the :SYSTem:LOCal command or pressing the LOCAL
key.
FORMat subsystem
The commands for this subsystem are used to select the data format for transferring
instrument readings over the bus. These commands are summarized in Table 18-3.
Data format
[:DATA] <type>[,length]
:FORMat[:DATA] <type>[,<length>] Select data format
Parameters <type>[,<length>] = ASCii ASCII format
REAL,32 IEEE754 single precision format
SREal IEEE754 single precision format
NOTE <length> is not used for the ASCii or SREal parameters. It is optional for the
REAL parameter. If you do not use <length> with the REAL parameter, the
<length> defaults to 32 (single precision format).
Query [:DATA]? Query data format
Description This command is used to select the data format for transferring read-
ings over the bus. Only the ASCII format is allowed over the RS-232
interface. This command only affects the output of READ?, FETCh?,
MEASure?, TRACe:DATA?, CALC1:DATA? and CALC2:DATA?
over the GPIB. All other queries are returned in the ASCII format.
NOTE Regardless of which data format for output strings is selected, the SourceM-
eter will only respond to input commands using the ASCII format.
ASCII format
The ASCII data format is in a direct readable form for the operator.
Most BASIC languages easily convert ASCII mantissa and exponent
to other formats. However, some speed is compromised to accom
-
modate the conversion. Figure 18-1 shows an example ASCII string
that includes all the data elements. (See “ELEMents <item list>,”
page 18-49.)