188 Agilent InfiniiVision 3000 X-Series Oscilloscopes User's Guide
12 Acquisition Control
When you press [Single], the display is cleared, the trigger mode is
temporarily set to Normal (to keep the oscilloscope from auto-triggering
immediately), the trigger circuitry is armed, the [Single] key is
illuminated, and the oscilloscope waits until a trigger condition occurs
before it displays a waveform.
When the oscilloscope triggers, the single acquisition is displayed and
the oscilloscope is stopped (the [Run/Stop] key is illuminated in red).
Press [Single] again to acquire another waveform.
If the oscilloscope doesn't trigger, you can press the [Force Trigger] key to
trigger on anything and make a single acquisition.
To display the results of multiple acquisitions, use persistence. See "To set
or clear persistence" on page 133.
Single vs.
Running and
Record Length
The maximum data record length is greater for a single acquisition than
when the oscilloscope is running (or when the oscilloscope is stopped
after running):
• Single — Single acquisitions always use the maximum memory available
— at least twice as much memory as acquisitions captured when
running — and the oscilloscope stores at least twice as many samples.
At slower time/div settings, because there is more memory available for
a single acquisition, the acquisition has a higher effective sample rate.
• Running — When running (versus taking a single acquisition), the
memory is divided in half. This lets the acquisition system acquire one
record while processing the previous acquisition, dramatically improving
the number of waveforms per second processed by the oscilloscope.
When running, a high waveform update rate provides the best
representation of your input signal.
To acquire data with the longest possible record length, press the [Single]
key.
For more information on settings that affect record length, see "Length
Control" on page 279.