Multiple-User Data Acquisition and Analysis System

The nuclear physics program at the Brookhaven National Laboratory High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR) employs a pair of PDP-11 computers for the dual functions of data acquisition and analysis. The data acquisition is accomplished through CAMAC and features a microprogrammed branch driver to accommodate various experimental inputs. The acquisition computer performs the functions of multi-channel analyzers, multiscaling and time-sequenced multichannel analyzers and gamma-ray coincidence analyzers. The data analysis computer is available for rapid processing of data tapes written by the acquisition computer. The ability to accommodate many users is facilitated by separating the data acquisition and analysis functions, and allowing each user to tailor the analysis to the specific requirements of his own experiment. The system is to be upgraded soon by the introduction of a dual port disk to allow a data base to be available to each computer.