DEVELOPMENT OF A REAL-TIME, 20 MEGA-SAMPLES PER SECOND, 32-CHANNEL DATA-ACQUISITION SYSTEM

A 32 channel data acquisition system has been developed to monitor, at intervals of 50 ns, the variation in the electron energy spectrum of a free electron laser during the 10 mu s duration of the electron beam pulses which repeat at a frequency of approximately 10 Hz. The data a re made available to the user in a variety of ways: as graphics displa ys on a VDU and as an archive that allows the latest data to be access ible to users at workstations elsewhere on the laboratory network. A l ow-cost, simple and robust system is described that will find applicat ion in other areas where real-time, rapid, multi-channel sampling is r equired, and an insight is provided into the design of both hardware a nd software aspects of a multitasking multiprocessor system.