The On-Line Application of Electronic Calculators to Nuclear Counting Systems

The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, operated by the University of California for the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, continues to be active in developing, designing, and building nuclear reactors. The Nondestructive Testing Group has been instrumental in the support of these programs by providing services in the inspection of the reactor components. Nuclear counting systems are applied in many phases of the testing program. Radiation transmission measurements, utilizing many different radiation sources, are applied to the determination of material thickness, density, and composition. Betabackscatter techniques are used in the measurement of coating thickness for many coating and substrate materials. Radiation counting techniques are used for the determination of reactor element fuel loadings. For all of these systems, the digital count information must be related through the use of appropriate standards to the physical characteristics of the material under inspection. The calibration data obtained from the standards can be expressed by means of empirical equations of elementary form. With the advent of the relatively inexpensive programmable electronic desk calculators, the direct, on-line conversion, reduction, and display of the test data became possible. The nuclear counting systems used in the nondestructive testing program employ conventional digital counters and recorders. The primary counters are Beckman/Berkeley EPUT Meters, driving digital printers and/or piper-tape punch units. Wang Laboratories undertook the design and manufacture of an electronic calculating system capable of direct connection to the existing counting equipment.     

Programs and Systems for On-Line Computers in Low Energy Nuclear Physics

A conference held five years ago this month served, among other things, to introduce the notion to a substantial representation from the community of experimental nuclear physicists that a stored program computer could be used as a powerful, flexible tool for extending the scope of, as well as for aiding in the detailed execution of their experimental programs. The appreciation of the possibilities which were raised were colored by a simultaneous apprehension. The physicists worried about how extensive an effort they would have to make, how intimately they would have to be involved in order to use a computer on-line to an experiment. In short - who was going to write the programs? The answer was, unfortunately, not long in coming - they were. The potential gains for some classes of users were such that they did not wish to leave the restricted world of wired-program analyzers which, after all, were sufficient unto their needs. For others, however, the ends justified the means of the task. This latter group set about creating the programs and, in fact, the systems of programs that were necessary. This paper discusses some of the programming approaches which are in use or are under development for handling all or some features of experiment procedures. Because this conference has reports directly by several of the users, the emphasis here will be to review and compare rather than describe any in great detail.