User manual

MAUI Oscilloscopes Remote Control and Automation Manual
Header
The header is the mnemonic form of the operation to be performed by the oscilloscope, what we usually
think of as the command or query. Most command and query headers have a long form, which allows
them to be read more easily by people, and a short form for better transfer and decoding speed. The two
are fully equivalent and can be used interchangeably.
EXAMPLE:TRIG_MODE AUTO and TRMD AUTO are two separate but equivalent commands for
switching to the automatic trigger mode.
Some command or query mnemonics are imposed by the IEEE 488.2 standard. They are standardized so
different oscilloscopes present the same programming interface for similar functions. All these
mnemonics begin with an asterisk *.
Parameters
Whenever a command or query uses additional parameter values, the values are expressed as ASCII
characters.
ASCII data can take the form of character, numeric, string, or block data. See Data Types.
There is a single exception: the transfer of waveforms with the WAVEFORM command/query, where the
waveform can be expressed as a sequence of binary data values. Refer to the Waveform Transfer topic
for details.
Terminator
The oscilloscope does not decode an incoming program message before receiving its terminator unless
the message is longer than the 256 byte input buffer (at which point the oscilloscope starts analyzing the
message once the buffer is full).
Most interface driver software will send the program message with the required terminators. You do not
have to include them in your programs. See I/O Buffers for more information.
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