Computer Controlled Electronics: CAMAC

Abstract

All (or almost all) experiments in nuclear and particle physics experiments today employ computer controlled data acquisition systems of some kind or another. Indeed, the quantity and rate as well as the complexity of the data which are generated in modern experiments make such systems mandatory. And in fact many experiments would be utterly impossible otherwise. The advantages of computer control are manifold. Besides simple data acquisition, systems can be made to monitor the apparatus, which may consist of hundreds or even thousands of detectors. Calibration procedures, for example, counter plateaux, timing curves, etc. may be performed automatically during system set-up. Online reconstruction and/or preliminary analyses of the raw data may also be performed allowing the physicist to examine events as they arrive, etc.