IBTERM(1)

✨ IBTERM(1) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the IBTERM(1) page from the Linux-GPIB User Manual — yes it's giving old-school, yes it's iconic, and yes we're gonna read the whole thing together 💖

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🌸 NAME 🌸

ibterm — Interactive GPIB terminal 🫶

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

ibterm {-d primary_address} [-m minor] [-s secondary_address] [-i eoi]
       [-e eos] [-r reos] [-b bin] [-x xeos] [-t timeout] [-p prompt]
       [-f history_file] [-N] [-X] [-h]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So basically: it's an interactive terminal program that sends commands to a device over an IEEE-488 general purpose instrument bus, and then prints whatever the device says back. That's the whole vibe. You type, it tells the instrument, instrument yaps back, you read it. Main character energy fr fr 👑

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -d address — Sets the device's primary address (aka the pad). This address has to be between 0 and 30. No exceptions, no cap.
• -m number — Says which minor number of the device file this interface board is gonna use. 0 = /dev/gpib0, 1 = /dev/gpib1, etc. Defaults to 0.
• -s address — Sets the device's secondary address (the sad, and yes that's the real name 😭). It must be 0 (which means disabled) or between 96 and 126 (0x60 and 0x7e in hexadecimal). Defaults to 0.
• -i 0|1 — Assert EIO with the last byte sent. Defaults to 1 (true).
• -e code — The ASCII code of the end-of-string (eos) character. The code has to be between 0 and 255. Defaults to 0 (no code).
• -r 0|1 — The terminate read on eos character (reos) flag. Defaults to 0 (false).
• -b 0|1 — Binary eos character match mode (bin) flag. Defaults to 0 (false).
• -x 0|1 — Assert EOI when transmitting eos (xeos) flag. Defaults to 0 (false).
• -t timeout — Sets the IO timeout for the device. The timeout must be one of the values in the list below. The default value is 10, which corresponds to 300 milliseconds. ⏳
• -p string — Sets the prompt. Defaults to ibterm>.
• -u string — Send Untalk/Unlisten after each read and write.
• -f file — Command history file. Defaults to .ibterm_hist_<primary_address>.
• -N — No automatic read on device — you enter return at the prompt to read.
• -X — Force hexadecimal output.
• -h — Print help and exit.

⏰ the timeout lore (the whole list, no skipping, periodt)

• 0 — Never timeout
• 1 — 10 microseconds
• 2 — 30 microseconds
• 3 — 100 microseconds
• 4 — 300 microseconds
• 5 — 1 millisecond
• 6 — 3 milliseconds
• 7 — 10 milliseconds
• 8 — 30 milliseconds
• 9 — 100 milliseconds
• 10 — 300 milliseconds
• 11 — 1 second
• 12 — 3 seconds
• 13 — 10 seconds
• 14 — 30 seconds
• 15 — 100 seconds
• 16 — 300 seconds
• 17 — 1000 seconds

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📝 NOTES 📝

• To quit the program, enter the EOF character (Ctrl+D) at the prompt. That's the exit door bestie 🚪
• For interactivity, the timeout should not be greater than 13 — that's 10 secs. Anything bigger and the vibes get sluggish.
• A device read can always be triggered by hitting enter at the prompt. 👀
• > ⚠️ Interrupting the program while reading from the device may cause hangs. Like, it can genuinely get stuck. Be careful out there 😭

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🧚 Implementation details 🧚

The program is implemented as follows:

    loop:
         Print prompt to stdout
         Read a line of text from stdin
         Write the text (if any) to the device at pad
         If -N is not set, or no text was entered:
            Attempt to read response from the device
            If no response is received before timeout:
            go to loop
            else:
            print the response on stdout
         Go back to loop.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

See the readline(3) man page for editing input and searching history. iykyk ✨

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright © 2003-2006, 2008 Frank Mori Hess

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and that's a wrap on the IBTERM(1) page from linux-gpib 4.3.7, dated 07/06/2026 — ty for reading, go slay some instrument commands, mwah 💖🎀🦋