M.A. Howe, R.J. Seymour, D.W. Storm and J.F. Wilkerson
We now have four VAXstation 3200-based data acquisition systems. They consist of Digital Qbus-based VAXStation 3200s running VMS v4.7a using VWS/UIS as the "windowing'' software. Each VAXstation supports a BiRa MBD-11 controlled CAMAC crate. Our primary system is attached to a dozen dedicated 200 MHz Tracor Northern TN-1213 ADCs. Those ADCs and other CAMAC modules are coincidence-gated by a UWNPL-built synchronization interface, which includes monitor (Singles) and routing-Or capabilities. The system also has a bank of 32 10-digit 75 MHz scalers.
Our principal VAXStation's small BA-23 cabinet is cabled into a second BA-23 CC expansion cabinet. That, in turn, has an MDB-11 DWQ11 Qbus-to-Unibus converter driving our old PDP 11/60's Unibus expansion bay. The system's Qbus peripherals include a CMD CQD-220/TM SCSI adapter for a Seagate ST41650 1.38 gigabyte disk and a TTI CTS-8210 8mm tape drive, a DEC IEQ11 IEEE-488 bus controller, and a DEC DRV11-J. The Unibus bay contains a DR11-C, our Printronix lineprinter controller and a Unibus cable to the MBD-11.
The other three acquisition systems consist solely of each VAXstation 3200's BA-23 using an Able Qniverter to provide a Unibus cable directly to a stand-alone MBD-11. Unlike the "principal" system, these do not control non-CAMAC-based equipment. The fourth "new" system is built from a Qniverter and MBD-11 graciously loaned by Russell Roberson at Duke upon Zhiping Zhao's request.
All three systems run acquisition software based upon TUNL's XSYS, with major modifications to their DISPLAY program.
TUNL's XSYS software includes an EVAL language compiler which generates VAX-native code. Our version of that compiler is limited to 1024 longwords of VAX sorting code per MBD channel. One Mass-8 experiment required far more space, so we completely replaced the EVL-generated code section by a pre-compiled Fortran subroutine set. Interface subroutines were created to provide easier access to the raw incoming event buffers. We still require an EVL routine to be used, but only for histogram storage coordination.