The Use of a Control Computer in a Chemistry Department

The Chemistry Department of the Stony Brook Campus of the State University of New York is composed of a number of faculty members whose research experiments fall generally into two categories; (1) steady data acquisition and control tasks with relatively small data and demand rates, and (2) continuous scan-type measurements of various data rates. An IBM 1800 control system is employed as the nerve center of a computer-based experiment complex. This paper discusses the multi-experiment control system used at Stony Brook Chemistry, giving some details of experiments performed by faculty members as examples of its application. It is pointed out that one of the objectives of this computerized department is creation of a course in the use of computers in chemistry. With a data-acquisition computer available in the department, the course can include actual bench practice in data acquisition and control tasks.