A universal front-end system for data acquisition

A description is given of a front-end electronics system featuring parallel processing, which was originally designed for colliding-beam experiments at TRISTAN. It has been proved to be quite useful for fixed-target experiments and has been widely used by other experiments. It can easily be connected to FASTBUS, VME, CAMAC, and other systems. The well-balanced data-flow scheme of the TRISTAN/KEK online system made the system data-handling speed comparable to or better than that of systems that require much faster electronics. It can be used as a universal front-end system for medium- to large-scale physics experiments.<
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