CAMAC

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CAMAC (Computer Automated Measurement and Control; also given as Computer-Aided Measurement And Control in some sources) is a standard bus and modular-crate electronics standard for data acquisition and control. It was widely used in particle detectors for nuclear and particle physics, and also in industry. The bus allows data exchange between plug-in modules (up to 24 in a single crate) and a crate controller, which then interfaces to a PC, or to a VME-CAMAC interface.

Modules are addressed by slot number; the left-most 22 slots are available for application modules while the right-most two slots are dedicated to a crate controller. A slot is commanded by the controller with one of 32 function codes (0–31); of these, 0–7 are read functions and will transfer data to the controller, while 16–23 are write function codes.

The standard was originally defined by the ESONE Committee as standard EUR 4100 in 1972, and covers the mechanical, electrical, and logical elements of a parallel bus (dataway) for the plug-in modules. Several standards have been defined for multiple crate systems, including the Parallel Branch Highway definition and Serial Highway definition. Vendor-specific Host/Crate interfaces have also been built.

This page contains content from Wikipedia, article Automated Measurement and Control Computer Automated Measurement and Control, under the Creative Commons license.

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