SCHNUR@Usc-Isie@sri-unix (12/11/82)
We use cromemco's.pdp-11's, and vectors to control experiments and analyze the results. At the moment 3 cromemco's are in service controlling spex doublemonochrometers with the out puts of the photon counting device going directly to the tu-art board of the cromemco. The data is analysed and out put to a tektronix 4662plotter. The vector. a 5005, is currently being used to take the data from a vidicon used in a picosecond spectroscopic experiment (a nd100) convert the data to real values and then do some processing and again plot it. The pdp-11's are going to be used in a similar way for a new experiment at the synchotron ring at Brook haven. The cromemco's disk drives have all failed at least once as have the hard disks of the pdp-11. We have no love of the CDOS operating system on the cromemco. The Tu-art is not particularly user friendly. For serial interfacing the bitstreamer board of the VEctor (an intel 8251 is used) is easy to program. The vector has proven to be the most reliable of the three computers for this application. Recently NRC has marketed a computer controlled ultra positioner for micron control of optical elements. They are using a vector graphics computer with a bitstreamer board. Hope this info was of some use. Joel