Remote Operation

Monitoring the Instrument

Output Queue

The output queue stores the instrument responses that are generated by certain commands and queries that you send to the instrument. The output queue generates the Message Available Summary bit when the output queue contains one or more bytes. This summary bit sets the MAV bit (bit 4) in the Status Byte. The method used to read the output queue depends upon the programming language and environment. For example, with HP Basic, the output queue may be read using the ENTER statement.

Error Queue

As errors are detected, they are placed in an error queue. Instrument specific errors are indicated by positive values. General errors have negative values. You can clear the error queue by reading its contents, sending the *CLS com- mand, or by cycling the instrument’s power. The error queue is first in, first out. If the error queue overflows, the last error in the queue is replaced with error -350, “Queue overflow.” Any time the queue overflows, the least recent errors remain in the queue, and the most recent error is discarded. The length of the instrument’s error queue is 30 (29 positions for the error messages, and 1 position for the “Queue overflow” message). Querying errors removes the oldest error from the head of the queue, which opens a position at the tail of the queue for a new error. When all the errors have been read from the queue, subsequent error queries return 0, “No error.”

Command

Use

*CLS common command

Clears the error queue (and all event registers).

SYSTem:ERRor?

Returns and removes the oldest error from the

 

head of the queue.

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