Using a commercial mathematics software package for on-line analysis at the BNL Accelerator Test Facility

By writing both a custom Windows NT dynamic link library and generic companion server software, the intrinsic functions of MathSoft's Mathcad have been extended with new capabilities which permit direct access to the control system databases of Brookhaven National Laboratory's Accelerator Test Facility. Under this scheme, a Mathcad worksheet executing on a personal computer becomes a client which can both import and export data to a control system server via a network stream socket connection. The result is an alternative, mathematically oriented view of controlling the accelerator interactively.