A CAMAC Serial Crate Controller for the Tevatron Accelerator

A CAMAC serial crate controller has been developed for the Tevatron Accelerator Control System. The controller accommodates two serial ports of access, block transfer read facility, and aggregate command capability. Communications to the controller are bit serial at a 10 megabit rate and employ a specially developed protocol. The programmed serial ports allow better than 50K dataway operations per second. The Block Transfer read facility operates in the UQC mode and can perform at the rate of 250K dataway operations per second. Operations at both ports and the Block Transfer function may be fully interleaved. The design provides for programmed arbitration of the two serial ports allowing either port to reserve the crate or a target slot for an uninterrupted sequence of dataway operations.