CAMAC Experimental Beam Line Control System

TLDR: The Laboratcry has well over two miles of beam lines in the Meson, Ne.Gtrino, and Proton experimental areas and the size and complexity of these beam lines as well as the requirements imposed by multiple experimenters led to the development of a computer-controlled multi-console control system.

Abstract: The Laboratcry has well over two miles of beam lines in the Meson, Ne.Gtrino, and Proton experimental areas. The size and complexity of these beam lines as well as the requirements imposed by multiple experimenters led to the development of a computer-controlled multi-console control system. To alleviate many of the problems associated wit:? interfacing various experimenters' equipment to this control system, a well-defined hardware interface was necessary. A CAmC modular instrumentation system1 was employed in all three beam lines prirr,arily because it is an international standard. Each of the beam lines is compster controlled using a number of CAMAC crates located in control areas scattered along each beam line. These control areas are tied together and to the computer 51' a f ast serial communications link. Control consoles consisting of CRTs or teletypes are interfaced to CAMAC crates and may be lccated in any control area. The system software handles up to 12 of these remote consoles, 2 local consoles, and a i.ariety of other tasks simultaneously through a multi-programming technique. Man-machine communication is by means of ccstom CRT displays and a message-oriented command language.