New Documented Features - Top - Components 
New Documented Features - Top - Components ... A few words...
Acquiring, collecting and analyzing data is the essence of mankind to satisfy his urge for understanding natural phenomena by comparing "real" events to his own symbolic representation. These fundamental steps paved human evolution and in the world of science they have been the keys to major steps forward in our understanding of nature. Until the last couple of decade's -when "Silicium" was still underground, the PPP protocol (Paper, Pencil and Patience) was the basic tool for this "unique" task. With the development of the "Central Processing Unit", data acquisition using computers wired to dedicated hardware instrumentation became available. This has allowed scientists to sit back and turn their minds towards finding solutions to problems such as "How do I analyze all these data?" Since the last decade or so when "connectivity" appeared to be a powerful word, the data acquisition system had to adapt itself to that new vocabulary.
Based on this sudden new technology, several successful systems using de-centralization of information have been developed. But the task is not simple! If the hardware is available, implementing a true distributed intelligence environment for a particular application requires that each node have full knowledge of the capability of all the other nodes. Complexity rises quickly and generalization of such systems is tough. Recently more pragmatic approaches emerged from all this, suggesting that central database information on a system may be more adequate, especially since processing and networking speed are not a "real" concern these days. MIDAS and its predecessor HIX may be counted part of the precursor packages in the field.
The old question: "How do we analyze all these data?" still remains and may have been the driving force behind this evolution :-).
Midas is based on a modular networking capability and a central database system. MIDAS consists of a C library and several applications. They run on many different operating systems such as UNIX like, Windows NT, VxWorks, VMS and MS-DOS. While the system is already in use in several laboratories, the development continues with addition of new features and tools. Current development involves RTLinux for either dedicated frontend or composite frontend and backend system.
For the newest status, check the MIDAS home page: Switzerland , Canada
For small experiments and test setups the front-end program can run on the back-end computer thus eliminating the need of network transfer, presuming that the back-end computer has direct access to the hardware. Device drivers for common PC-CAMAC interfaces have been written for Windows NT and Linux. Drivers for PC-VME interfaces are commercially available for Windows NT.
For data analysis, users can write a complete analyzer or use the standard MIDAS analyzer which uses HBOOK routines for histogramming and PAW for histogram display.
The MIDAS package contains also a slow control system which can be used to control high voltage supplies, temperature control units etc. The slow control system is fully integrated in the main data acquisition and act as a front-end with particular built-in control mechanism. Slow control values can be written together with event data to tape.
New Documented Features - Top - Components