HP 8920A Programmer's Manual page 243

Chapter 5, Advanced Operations
Increasing Measurement Throughput
Optimizing Measurement Setup Time
Measurement setup time is defined as the time required to configure an individual
instrument within the Test Set to make a measurement.
In general there are two methodologies which can be used to setup individual
instruments in the Test Set:
1. Set up every field every time a measurement is made.,
2. Define a base instrument state and then modify it as needed for each measurement
(always returning to the base state after finishing the measurement).
Defining a base instrument state requires fewer HP-IB transactions to set up an
instrument (in the majority of cases) which in turn reduces measurement setup
time.
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