ORTEC DSPEC User Manual

21
6. COMMANDS AND RESPONSES
Communication with a DSPEC consists of sending command records to the MCB and receiving
response records from the MCB. Both command and response records consist of a sequence of
printable ASCII characters followed by an ASCII carriage return. The single exception to this
rule is the “#B” response record for the WRITE command, which contains binary integer
numbers. All commands eventually respond with a percent response record (so named because it
begins with an ASCII percent sign “%”) which signifies the completion of the command. SHOW
and STEP commands respond with a dollar response record (begins with an ASCII dollar sign
“$”) followed by a percent response record. The WRITE command can respond with multiple
pound sign records (begins with an ASCII pound sign “#”) but eventually completes by sending
a percent response record. All other commands result in a single percent response record upon
completion.
6.1. Command Records
Commands consist of a command header that may be followed by numeric parameter values.
The header consists of a verb or a verb and noun separated by an underscore; or a verb, noun,
and modifier, each separated by underscores. The verbs, nouns, and modifiers in the command
header are mnemonic words such as the verb ENABLE or the noun OVERFLOW that relate to
the function performed by the MCB when it executes the command. The first four letters of any
word will always be enough to uniquely identify the word when composing commands for an
MCB. For example, the command
ENABLE_OVERFLOW_PRESET
can be abbreviated to
ENAB_OVER_PRES
.
Numeric parameters follow the command header separated by one or more spaces. Specific
commands require up to three parameters, separated by commas, which specify numeric
quantities related to the operation of the MCB, such as live time or conversion gain. The
command
SET_WINDOW 0,16384
has two parameters, 0 and 16384, which set the window of
interest to start at channel 0 and continue for 16384 channels.
Some parameters listed in the command dictionary are considered optional and are distinguished
from mandatory parameters by being surrounded by brackets in the command prototype line
(e.g.,
SET_WINDOW [start,length]
). Commands that have optional parameters may be sent to
the MCB without the optional parameters, in which case the behavior will be changed as
explained in the command description.
An optional checksum may be added to the end of any command sent to an MCB. The checksum
is a 1-byte unsigned integer sum of all of the characters in a command, treated as unsigned
integers, up to and including the comma or space(s) that separates the checksum from the
command. The checksum simply appears as an extra parameter added to the end of the command
parameter list. For commands that do not normally have parameters, the checksum appears as the

ORTEC DSPEC Specifications

General

Brand	ORTEC
Model	DSPEC
Category	Measuring Instruments
Language	English