Gilderfluke&Co Frequency Shift Keyed/Remote Terminal Unit : User guide : Page 19

- String Setup -

STRINGS are the ASCII characters and commands which you can tell the FSK/RTU send at the start or

end of any show through its serial port. The Strings used in the FSK/RTU are similar to those used in

PC•MACs or the Smart Brick Animation Control Systems. They are used primarily to talk to LaserDisk and

Compact Disc players or just to tell the FSK/RTU to close the contacts on its tape deck control outputs.

They can also be used to send commands through the serial port to any other piece of show equipment

that needs a serial input to start or stop it, or even just to print on a monitoring screen that a show has

started or ended.

When using the FSK/RTU with a LaserDisk or Compact Disc, you will typically use the STOP string to

pause the player, the PLAY string to tell the player to start playing, and the REWIND string to spin up the disk

position the player to the beginning of the first show.

The ‘enter string’ command leads to the following String Setup Screen (the default configuration is

shown):

a) Stop String:

05 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

b) Play String:

06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

c) Rewind String:

07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

x) eXit

command-

Characters are entered into the strings as HEXadecimal ASCII characters. As an example of using

ASCII:

To send a letter “a”, you enter the HEXadecimal value of 61.

If bit seven of any ASCII character is set to =1, then instead of sending the character out the serial

port, the FSK/RTU will wait until it receives this character through the serial port. As an example of using

ASCII to receive a character:

To wait until the FSK/RTU receives a letter “a”, you enter a value of E1.

If the FSK/RTU receives a different character than it was expecting, then the DATA ERROR LED will flash

momentarily. Use the ‘Special Character’ 80h if you don’t care what character is to be received.

The strings are up to 80 characters long. They are sent as part of a start, stop or rewind sequence. The

default strings simply close the Stop, Play and rewind relays, respectively. All the characters in a string will

be sent until a ‘00’ is encountered or the end of the string is reached.

When entering any of the strings, you can stop at any time by just pressing the <ESC>ape key. You

don’t need to enter in all 80 characters in each string. This will conclude (not abort) the string entry com-

mand.

GILDERFLUKE & CO. • 205 SOUTH FLOWER ST. • BURBANK, CALIF. 91502-2102 • 818/840-9484 • FAX818/840-9485

15 of 25