eacj@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Julian Vrieslander) (11/26/87)
This is in response to Greg Corson's request for info on 12 and 16-bit
digitizers, but since my reply became a rather general summary of analog
interface products, I chose a new subject line. I have been shopping for
high-quality DAC/ADC products for the Mac and Mac II, and this is a
synopsis of the stuff I know about. Things are looking up for us Mac
addicts who need sampling. Until recently, all we could do is groan and
buy a PC....
MacLab System
ADC and DAC in a box that connects to modem port of any Mac.
Sample rates to 40k/sec. Sample width = ?
Comes with wave display and wave statistics software.
WPI Instruments, Inc.
375 Quinnipiac Ave.
New Haven, CT 06513 (203)469-8281
LabMaster II
NuBus board for Mac II.
12-bit ADC, Two 12-bit DAC's, 24 lines of digital I/O, Five 16-bit
counter/timers. Sample rates to 40k/sec. (100k/sec. with TM-100
option). Comes with "device drivers for multi-language application
development."
Scientific Solutions
6225 Cochran Rd.
Solon, Ohio 44139 (216)349-4030
MacAdios 411
Add-on box that connects to modem port of Mac 128, 512, Plus or SE.
12-bit ADC and DAC, with 8 differential input channels and 4 output
channels. Sample rates to 20,833/sec. 16 digital input lines, 16
digital output lines. Interface code in Microsoft Basic and Aztec C,
library of data acquisition/analysis routines.
GW Instruments, Inc.
P.O. Box 2145
264 Msgr O'Brien Hwy
Cambridge, MA 02141 (617)625-4096
MacAdios II
NuBus board for Mac II.
12-bit ADC and DAC, with 16 single-ended input channels
(8 differential) and 2 output channels. Sample rates to 142k/sec.
8 digital input lines, 8 digital output lines. 3 15-bit counter/timers.
Up to 3 optional daughter boards can be added:
12-bit, 833k/sec ADC
12-bit, 142k/sec ADC
16-bit, 100k/sec DAC
16-bit, 16k/sec DAC
16-bit, 50k/sec ADC
Multiplexor card (additional 32 single-ended, or 16 diff. inputs)
Digital I/O (additional 16 digital inputs and 16 digital outputs)
Analog filter (programmable lowpass)
Prototype card
Interface routines callable from Aztec C, Consulair C, Microsoft
Basic, DCM Fortran, Lightspeed Pascal, Lightspeed C, library of data
acquisition/analysis routines.
GW Instruments (see above)
National Instruments NB-MIO-16
NuBus board for Mac II.
12-bit ADC with 16 single-ended input channels (8 differential).
2 12-bit DACs, 8 digital I/O lines, 3 16-bit counter/timers.
Sample rates to 40k/sec. Up to 111k/sec with optional convertors.
Can be set up for DMA if used with NB-DMA-8 controller card.
National Instruments, Inc.
12109 Technology Blvd.
Austin, TX 78727-6204 (800)531-4742, (800)IEEE-488 in Texas
National Instruments ?????
NuBus board for Mac II.
2 16-bit DACs, 2 16-bit ADCs, plus on-board antialiasing filters,
and additional features yet to be decided.
Sampling rates equivalent to consumer digital audio (CD, DAT).
This is a product under development, not available until sometime in
1988.
Strawberry Tree ACM2-12 and ACM2-16
NuBus boards for Mac II.
Each has ADC and DAC. Number of analog and digital I/O channels
depends on board option selected. Sample rates up to 500k/sec.
ACM2-12 is 12-bit, ASCM2-16 is 16-bit. On-board counter/timer.
Strawberry Tree Computers
150 North Wolfe Rd.
Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408)736-3083
Strawberry Tree ACSE-12 and ACSE-16
Plugin boards for Mac SE.
ADC with 8 differential input channels. 10k/sec. sampling rate.
ACSE-12 is 12-bit, ACSE-16 is 16-bit.
8 digital I/O lines. On-board counter/timer.
Southworth Music ?????
High performance sampling/playback product. 24-bit (??) sample
processing. Motorola digital signal processing chip (56000?).
Product under development. Available in mid-88.
Southworth Music Systems (617)772-9471
If anyone is aware of any other analog sampling devices that are
compatible with the Mac and/or Mac II, I would like to hear of them.
Out of the above listed products, I have had personal experience only with
the GW Instruments MacAdios 411 box, which is a competent, if not
remarkable product. I have also seen their MacSpeech Lab software and a
demo version of MacSpeech Lab II for the Mac II. The latter is a superb
piece of software for analyzing and editing digitized waveforms,
especially speech or animal vocalizations. It has time domain waveform
displays, FFT, LPC, envelope and energy displays, and a grayscale
spectrogram display that rivals the Kay Sonograph for much less $$.
The GW hardware and the boards from National Instruments can be used with
the LabView software package from National. That's the highly Mac-ish
system for configuring data acquistion systems by connecting icons in a
dataflow diagram. Strawberry Tree has a somewhat similar software package
called "Analog Connection Workbench" that works with their own hardware.
One bit of warning for anyone considering the purchase of a 16-bit
sampling device that plugs into a computer slot. Just because the board
has 16 bits of resolution does NOT mean that you can obtain 16-bits worth
of wideband signal-to-noise ratio from it. That takes some very careful
design work. One of the folks from GW instruments was quite open about
this when I asked about their 16-bit cards; he said that they did not try
to optimize for that kind of compact-disk-like noise level. Maybe the
folks at National or Southworth will do better with their forthcoming
boards.
--
Julian Vrieslander (607) 255-3594
Neurobiology & Behavior, W250 Mudd Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853
UUCP: {cmcl2,decvax,rochester,uw-beaver,ihnp4}!cornell!batcomputer!eacj
ARPA: eacj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu BITNET: eacj@CRNLTHRY