RTC
®
5 PC Interface Board
Rev. 1.9 e
7 Basic Functions for Scan Head and Laser Control
150
7.5 Marking Dates, Times and
Serial Numbers
Many applications need to mark the current time and
date or product serial numbers. For this purpose, the
RTC
®
5 command set includes a set of supporting
commands.
Before times, dates and serial numbers can be
marked, the corresponding characters and text
strings must be defined as indexed characters and
indexed text strings. This is described "Defining
Indexed Text Strings for Times, Dates and Serial
Numbers" on page 80. Separate text strings can be
defined for marking times/dates and serial numbers.
7.5.1 Marking the Date and Time
Before times and dates can be marked, the RTC
®
5
(after each start-up) needs to synchronize with the
PC’s time and obtain the current values for time and
date:
• Calibration of the RTC
®
5’s 24-hour time and date
is achieved through comparison with the PC’s
time via time_update. Afterward, the RTC
®
5
internally maintains the date and time with a
quartz-controlled 10 µs clock.
• The current time and date can be queried or
stored with the command time_fix, time_fix_f or
time_fix_f_off.
Subsequently, the time (hours, minutes, seconds) can
be marked via mark_time or mark_time_abs and the
date (year, month, day, day-of-the-week) via
mark_date or mark_date_abs. These mark
commands use the time and date supplied via
time_fix, time_fix_f or time_fix_f_off and start
output of the previously-defined indexed text strings
for time and date.
For marking date and time with the RTC
®
5, one can
choose between Gregorian dates and Julian days as
well as between the 12-hour and 24-hour time.
For marking dates of expiry (or something similar),
you can also use time_fix_f_off to fix a forward date
based on the current date and current time.
7.5.2 Marking Serial Numbers
Serial numbers containing up to 12 digits can be
marked via the commands mark_serial or
mark_serial_abs. The commands initiate output of
command lists for the numerals 0…9 that were previ-
ously defined as indexed characters or text strings.
You can also specify if and how leading zeros should
be handled.
The RTC
®
5 board manages up to 4 serial-number-sets
(each with its own serial number and increment size).
After initialization with load_program_file, serial-
number-set 0 is selected. When using multiple serial-
number-sets, you’ll need to first select the desired set
via select_serial_set or select_serial_set_list (see
notes below).
The control commands set_serial and
set_serial_step and the list command
set_serial_step_list let you specify a starting serial
number (max. 10 digits) and an increment size for
each serial-number-set. After initialization with
load_program_file, all starting serial numbers are
set to 0 and all increment sizes to 1.
With each call of mark_serial (or mark_serial_abs),
the current serial number of the currently selected set
is BCD-encoded and (even before execution of the
BCD-encoded serial number marking) the serial
number will be incremented by the specified
increment size. If a serial number is to be omitted,
then mark_serial can also execute a blank marking
(
digits
= 0), which increments the serial number by
1 (not by the specified increment size).
Notes
• If a serial-number-set is to be marked via
mark_serial or mark_serial_abs, then you can
only select that set via the list command
select_serial_set_list. mark_serial,
mark_serial_abs and set_serial_step_list are
always applied to the serial-number-set most
recently selected via select_serial_set_list (or to
serial-number-set 0 after load_program_file).
• You can use the control command get_list_serial
to query the number of the serial-number-set
most recently selected via select_serial_set_list
as well as the current serial number of that set
(i.e. typically the serial number most recently
marked via mark_serial or mark_serial_abs).
This also lets you determine (among other things)
whether the current number was or wasn’t incre-
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