Use of a Time-sharing Computer in Nuclear Chemistry

The Oregon State University computer-analyzer system couples the advantages of on-line data acquisition and analysis with the low cost of a time-sharing computer. The system operates in two modes. In Mode A, a 4096-channel analyzer serves as a data acquisition and buffer storage device with the contents of the analyzer memory being transmitted via telephone lines to the Oregon State University computer for analysis. In Mode B, the correlated outputs of N analog-to-digital converters (corresponding to an N-parameter event) are transmitted to the computer in real time for storage and analysis. Additional information, programming and computations may be entered at any time from a remote terminal console. The results of the data analysis can be returned immediately to the remote terminal console or to any regular computer output device. This system has the advantages of being able to utilize the full facilities of a large computer, its FORTRAN compiler, etc., for on-line data acquisition and analysis while avoiding the responsibilities of hardware maintenance and systems programming for the nuclear chemists.