Escient MP-150 manual External Control Protocol Specification, Commands and Responses Overview

EXTERNAL CONTROL PROTOCOL WD031-1-3 4/18/2005

External Control Protocol Specification

Commands and Responses Overview

Version 03.11.13.02.00

The external control protocol is standard ASCII based. ESCX is the four-letter preamble that is used for all commands. This preamble must be uppercase. The commands provided in this protocol allow an external control system to navigate the Escient products, get library information to build custom user interfaces, perform transport controls, and receive unsolicited feedback on system status.

All external control commands are made up of the preamble (ESCX), command group (01,02,10,20,50,70), sub command (specific task), specific data (# of data items, and a size of data packet then the actual data packet repeated for the # of data items), and a carriage return end marker.

External Control Command Structure

DESCRIPTION PREAMBLE COMMAND GROUP SUBCOMMAND # DATAITEMS DATAITEM#1 SIZE DATA#1 DATAITEM#2 SIZE DATA#2 ENDMARKER

Bytes	4	2	2	3	4	5	4	3	1
Example	ESCX	01	08	002	0005	Hello	0003	Bye	Carriage
									Return

The external control commands are broken down into the following Command Groups:

01 – Command Responses

02 – Unsolicited Events

10 – Remote Button / Keyboard Commands

20 – Database Commands

50 – Status Commands

70 – Control Commands

All commands will cause one of the following response numbers to be issued. Some commands, such as database commands will also send back additional responses that contain more detailed information.

Command Responses

	COMMAND		RESPONSE NUMBER	RESPONSE DESCRIPTION
	GROUP
01		01		OK
01		02		Bad Command Structure
01		03		Empty Library or Bad Range

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