Introduction to SCPI

Management and Maintenance of Programs

SCPI simplifies maintenance and man- agement of the programs. Today changes and additions in a good working program are hardly possible because of the great diversity in program messages and instru- ments. Programs are difficult to under- stand for anyone other than the original programmer. After some time even the programmer may be unable to understand them.

A programmer with SCPI experience, however, will understand the meaning and reasons of a SCPI program, because of his knowledge of the standard. Changes, extensions, and additions are much easier to make in an existing appli- cation program. SCPI is a step towards portability of instrument programming software and, as a consequence, it allows the exchange of instruments.

Response

Messages

Output Queue

Response

Messages

Response

Formatter

Response Data

GPIB

GPIB

Interface

Message

Exchange

Control

Instrument Functions

Program

Messages

Input Buffer

Program

Messages

Parser

Parsed

Messages

Execution

Control

Executable

Messages

Figure 3-3Overview of the firmware in a SCPI instrument.

What is SCPI? 3-3

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Fluke PM6681R, PM6685R manual Management and Maintenance of Programs, Gpib