ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Inputs and outputs > Analogue outputs > Setting up an analogue output > Specifying whether the physical port used by an analogue output is always the same

Specifying whether the physical port used by an analogue output is always the same

In brief

In the majority of situations, the physical port used by an analogue output will always be the same - it's simply the port on the interface device which outputs the analogue signal.

However, you may encounter situations in which the port depends on the location of a movable zone. For example, in a Y-maze you may have three shockers connected to the floor of each arm of the maze, and the shockers' intensity might be controlled by an analogue output.

Now you want to create an analogue output called 'Known arm shock intensity' (because you want to alter the shock intensity in the 'Known arm' during the test), but you have set the 'Known arm' to be a movable zone - i.e. it isn't always the same physical arm of the maze, but changes between tests.

Thus the 'Known arm shock intensity' will be the analogue output which connects to the shocker/floor in whichever arm happens to be the 'Known arm' in a particular test, which necessarily means it won't always be the same physical shocker, and therefore the 'Known arm shock intensity' analogue output won't always be connected to the same physical port.

Details

If you do have an analogue output whose physical port depends on the location of a movable zone, like in the Y-maze example above, then you simply need to specify this by selecting the appropriate option from the drop-down list in the analogue output's setting in the protocol. (Note that this drop-down list is only displayed when the protocol includes one or more movable zones).

When you do this, the element will automatically be given one 'Port to use' sub-element for each location of the movable zone you chose - so in the Y-maze example, there will be three 'Port to use' sub-elements, one for each arm of the maze. You'll then be able to use these sub-elements to specify which port is used for each of the possible locations of the zone.

ANY-maze help topic T0273