Section 11. Glossary
Term: ASCII / ANSI
Related Topics:
• Term: ASCII / ANSI (p. 490)
• ASCII / ANSI table
Abbreviation for American Standard Code for Information Interchange /
American National Standards Institute. An encoding scheme in which
numbers from 0-127 (ASCII) or 0-255 (ANSI) are used to represent pre-
defined alphanumeric characters. Each number is usually stored and
transmitted as 8 binary digits (8 bits), resulting in 1 byte of storage per
character of text.
Term: 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
(p. 517) ).
Indicates the sending and receiving devices are not synchronized using a
clock signal.
Term: AWG
AWG ("gauge") is the accepted unit when identifying wire diameters.
Larger AWG values indicate smaller cross-sectional diameter wires. Smaller
AWG values indicate large-diameter wires. For example, a 14 AWG wire is
often used for grounding because it can carry large currents. 22 AWG wire
is often used as sensor leads since only small currents are carried when
measurements are made.
Term: baud rate
The rate at which data are transmitted.
Term: beacon
A signal broadcasted to other devices in a PakBus® network to identify
"neighbor" devices. A beacon in a PakBus network ensures that all devices in
the network are aware of other devices that are viable. If configured to do so,
a clock-set command may be transmitted with the beacon. This function can
be used to synchronize the clocks of devices within the PakBus network.
See also PakBus
(p. 508) and neighbor device (p. 506).
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