BitScope Host Interface

Communication between the host computer and BitScope is made via USB, Ethernet or RS-232 or RS-422. You can think of your link to BitScope as the execution port to which commands are written and from which replies and data are read.

The original BitScope design has the following characteristics:

• 115K or 57K6 baud rate.
• 8 data 1 stop bit, no parity.
• No hardware handshake.

• 625k baud rate.
• UDP/IP Protocol.
• IP Sockets API.

• 1.25 M baud rate.

• Single byte commands.
• Atomic command execution.
• Stateless protocol, easy to use.

The newer models operate at faster speeds but they all work the same way in principle; command bytes are always echoed, providing a handshake. Data bytes may then be returned depending on the command. This is what we mean by an atomic and stateless communications protocol. We call it the BitScope Atomic Bytecode Protocol.

Anyone who has debugged low level network problems, a computer bus, or other multi-state system will appreciate that most problems occur in the management of state. If the protocol has no state, and transactions are atomic, such problems don't arise in the first place. This is why it is very easy to communicate with BitScope.