FASTBUS Implementation Review

For the last few years, enough has been known about the properties and capabilities of FASTBUS for it to be incorporated into the design of some experiments. As a result, despite the newness of the specification, a number of systems using FASTBUS are well advanced and a few even completed. We discuss some of these systems from several viewpoints, including why FASTBUS was chosen, how painful was the implementation and the role played by the software. FASTBUS systems in the United States, Europe and Japan are included in this review.