Campbell Scientific CR6 CR6 Measurement and Control System - Page 489

11. Glossary 11.1 Terms Term. ac See Vac (p. 512). Term. accuracy A measure of the correctness of a measurement. See also the appendix Accuracy, Precision, and Resolution (p. 513). Term. A-to-D Analog-to-digital conversion. The process that translates analog voltage levels to digital values. Term. amperes (A) Base unit for electric current. Used to quantify the capacity of a power source or the requirements of a power-consuming device. Term. analog Data presented as continuously variable electrical signals. Term. argument See parameter (p. 503). Term. ASCII / ANSI Abbreviation for American Standard Code for Information Interchange / American National Standards Institute. An encoding scheme in which numbers from 0-127 (ASCII) or 0-255 (ANSI) are used to represent predefined alphanumeric characters. Each number is usually stored and transmitted as 8 binary digits (8 bits), resulting in 1 byte of storage per character of text. Term. asynchronous The transmission of data between a transmitting and a receiving device occurs as a series of zeros and ones. For the data to be "read" correctly, the receiving device must begin reading at the proper point in the series. In asynchronous communication, this coordination is accomplished by having each character surrounded by one or more start and stop bits which designate the beginning and ending points of the information (see synchronous (p. 510) ). Indicates the sending and receiving devices are not synchronized using a clock signal. Term. AWG Accepted abbreviation for "gauge." AWG is the accepted unit when identifying wire diameters. Larger AWG values indicate smaller crosssectional diameter wires. Smaller AWG values indicate large-diameter wires. 489