11-4
Return to
2600AS-901-01 Rev. B / September 2008
Section 11: Display Operations
Series 2600A System SourceMeter® Instruments Reference Manual
Display messages
NOTE Most of the display functions and attributes that are associated with
display messaging will automatically select the user screen. The
attribute for the display screen is explained in
The reset functions (
reset
or
smuX.reset
) have no effect on the
defined display message or its configuration, but will set the display
mode back to the previous source-measure display mode.
The display of the Series 2600A can be used to display user-defined messages. For example,
while a test is running, the following message can be displayed on the Series 2600A.
Test in Process
Do Not Disturb
The top line of the display can accommodate up to 20 characters (including spaces). The bottom
line can display up to 32 characters (including spaces) at a time.
NOTE The display.clear, display.setcursor, and display.settext functions
(which are explained in the following paragraphs) are overlapped,
non-blocking commands. The script will NOT wait for one of these
commands to complete.
These non-blocking functions do not immediately update the display.
For performance considerations, they write to a shadow and will
update the display as soon as processing time becomes available.
Clearing the display
When sending a command to display a message, a previously defined user message is not
cleared. The new message starts at the end of the old message on that line. It is good practice to
routinely clear the display before defining a new message.
After displaying an input prompt, the message will remain displayed even after the operator
performs the prescribed action. The
clear
function must be sent to clear the display.
The following command clears both lines of the display, but does not affect any of the indicators:
display.clear()
Cursor position
When displaying a message, the cursor position determines where the message will start. On power-
up, the cursor is positioned at Row 1, Column 1 (see
). At this cursor position, a user-
defined message will be displayed on the top row (Row 1).
Top line text will not wrap to the bottom line of the display automatically. Any text that does not fit
on the current line will be truncated. If the text is truncated, the cursor will be left at the end of the
line.
