SHEIVA: A Multi-Parameter Interactive Data Acquisition and Processing System at VECC

A general purpose modular software system has been developed around a PDP-15/76 computer for the collection, storage, real-time analysis and off-line sorting of experimental data and for generating interactive one-and two-dimensional displays. It provides high flexibility and ease of operation by specially emphasizing on dynamic core optimisation for trasformation and display of data, device independence in data recording and the simplicity of man-machine interaction. It supports a maximum of thirty two inputs connected through a high speed DMA channel, the number of inputs at present is limited to eight because of the available hardware. The program architecture is open-ended to accommodate future experimental hardware and provides a parasitic environment for the user to attach his special-purpose routines, which makes it versatile. Problems encountered in experiments using several particle identifying detector telescopes are solved dynamically by the program, making it specially suited to various correlation studies.