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FIREBALL-MP INSTALLATION & USER’S GUIDE - M21101-
APPENDIX D- EXTERNAL CONTROL PROTOCOL
Commands and Responses Overview
The external control protocol is standard ASCII based. ESCX is the four letter preamble that is used for all commands. This preamble must
be uppercase. The commands provided in this protocol allow an external control system to navigate the Escient products, get library informa-
tion to build custom user interfaces, perform transport controls, and receive unsolicited feedback on system status.
All external control commands are made up of the preamble (ESCX), command group (01,02,10,20,50,70), sub command (specic task),
specic data (# of data items, and a size of data packet then the actual data packet repeated for the # of data items), and a carriage return end
marker.
External Control Command Structure
DESCRIPTION
PREAMBLE
COMMAND
GROUP
SUB COM-
MAND
# DATA
ITEMS
DATA ITEM
#1 SIZE
DATA #1
DATA ITEM
#2 SIZE
DATA #2
END
MARKER
Bytes 4 2 2 3 4 5 4 3 1
Example ESCX 01 08 002 0005 Hello 0003 Bye Carriage Return
The external control commands are broken down into the following Command Groups:
01 – Command Responses
02 – Unsolicited Events
10 – Remote Button / Keyboard Commands
20 – Database Commands
50 – Status Commands
70 – Control Commands