FLEXIBLE DATA-ACQUISITION SYSTEM FOR EXPERIMENTS AT COSY

For the KFA Julich COoler SYnchroron COSY a general data acquisition s ystem was developed. Its architecture is based on available standards (VME, FASTBUS, CAMAC, VICbus) and UNIX Workstations forming a distribu ted processor system. Based on this hardware a flexible and modular da ta acquisition software was designed allowing the configuration of var ious experiment arrangements. The software design for run control is a rranged according to a client server connectivity model as well as to an object oriented structure. It is logically based on MAP/MMS (ISO950 6), a powerful application layer protocol for distributed automation s ystems in industry. In our application servers are implemented on the mProcessor controller boards at the frontend. On the workstation side the experiment control client consists of dedicated processes with acc ess to the configurable experiment data base. The user interface is re alized by OSF/Motif. Established software standards for online data an alysis high energy physics are employed. We discuss the most important design decisions mainly focusing on the software aspects.