Control and Data Channels

There are two bi-directional channels:

• Control (Network Adaptor)
• Data (Connected BitScope)

The control channel is used to communicate with the Network Adaptor itself.

The data channel is used to communicate with the BitScope connected to the adaptor. Channels are identified by UDP Port. The Data Channel is on port 0x4001 and the Control Channel on 0x4002.

Control Channel

The use of the control channel is optional.

Its purpose is to allow the configuration of the IP address and other parameters as well as to obtain status information. The Network Adaptor may be used in simple networks without ever needing to use the control channel.

However, if required the Configuration Tool (for Windows or Linux with source) is available to configure the adaptor via the control channel prior to use. Once configured, the adaptor stores this information in FLASH memory so it need only be done once.

Data Channel

The data channel provides the means by which the PC application software (UAP) communicates with its Network BitScope(s). The UAP prepares a sequence of BitScope commands and forwards this sequence as a tagged Command Packet over the data channel.

The Network Adaptor passes the sequence of commands to BitScope, one at a time with handshake, and compiles the reply bytes into a Reply Packet which is returned to the UAP.

The Network Adaptor is transparent to the data path between the UAP on the PC and the connected BitScope with two exceptions; it concatenates bytes to support queued commands and it prepends three protocol bytes to the Reply Packet.