Read a reply string from a device on the GPIB bus and display it.

Arguments:

GpibDev device

The address of the GPIB device to read a reply from.

Example:

The CBI power meter has GPIB address 13. When left in its default free-running mode it sends readings to anyone who will listen. The following example reads one of these power readinds and displays it.

  gpib_read 13

Context:

One of the boards that the real-time control system manages is a VME interface to a GPIB bus. In the current design of the CBI this will be used solely to interact with a power meter, but in principle up to 30 instruments can be daisy-chained on a GPIB bus, so this command provides a simple way to query any instrument on the bus. If you specify a GPIB address that doesn't correspond to any instrument on the bus, or if the targeted device doesn't have anything to send then this call will time-out after 5 seconds.