The Data Acquisition System for SLD

This paper describes the data acquisition system planned for the SLD detector which is being constructed for use with the SLAC Linear Collider (SLC). An exclusively FASTBUS frontend system is used together with a VAX-based host system. While the volume of data transferred does not challenge the band-width capablities of FASTBUS, extensive use is made of the parallel processing capablities allowed by FASTBUS to reduce the data to a size which can be handled by the host system. The low repetition rate of the SLC allows a relatively simple software-based trigger. The principal components and overall architecture of the hardware and software are described.