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APIcom Instruction Manual Configuration
Table 2-8: Site Properties
Property Description
Name A user-defined name for the site. The name appears in graphs and window
captions. The site name is combined with the instrument name to form a title for
dialog boxes and graphs. For example, a “M300E” instrument name and a “San
Francisco Lab” site name are combined for front panel window titles such as
“M300E at San Francisco Lab”
Connection Type Selects whether the connection is made by means of a direct cable, modem or
by TCP/IP (Ethernet). Two kinds of modems are supported: Windows (TAPI)
modems and non-Windows modems. The use of Windows modems is
recommended, however, some older modems may not be supported by
Windows. In these cases, the non-Windows modem support can be used. The
TCP/IP option is an experimental implementation only at this time and is
supported only for a few specific RS-232 to Ethernet converters.
Once a connection type is selected, it must be configured by clicking on
.
2.5.3. Direct Cable Connections
If a site’s Connection Type property is set to Direct Cable, then clicking on will display the
first dialog box shown in the following figure.
Figure 2-12: Direct Cable Connection Properties and Port Settings Dialogs
The first dialog box only displays the COM ports that are present on the host computer. It is possible
that even though a COM port is physically present, it is reserved by some other application, and
consequently it doesn’t appear in the list. Furthermore, devices such as mouse, games and terminal
programs may be using one COM port. Even though these ports would show in the list, they cannot be
used for APIcom. APIcom needs a dedicated, free COM port to operate (However, several programs
can share one COM port if operated in alternating sequence, one at a time). Select the COM port to use
and click on
, which will display the second dialog box in Figure 2-12.
This dialog box is a standard Windows dialog. APIcom only uses the Bits per second, Data bits, Parity,
Stop bits, and Flow control (NONE or XON/XOFF only) properties, even if the COM port hardware has
more settings. APIcom does not support Hardware (RTS/CTS) flow control because none of the
instruments do. APIcom does support XON/XOFF flow control, but all instruments at one site need to do
so. In that case, XON/XOFF flow control needs to be enabled in each instrument by setting its
RS232_MODE variable.
05499 Rev. A 2-12