Macintosh in the laboratory - an approach

In experiment control by MacVEE, a hierar­ chy of graphical structures can be opened by the mouse to access pop-up menus and dialog boxes of interactive commands.

Since Henry Ford, the gulf between x 6 File Edit Ctrl Sel Control-Panel Options the bargains' available in mass-pro­ UME Readout Control ^[ Configure jplelp duced products and the cost of Branches DflS Abort Trigger things that cannot be produced in Phase Check ON I Phqs i c ROP Check ON Calib. volume has grown steadily. Since Abort Enabled Test the introduction of digital inte­ grated circuits, cost-effective sys­ tems design has been based on a philosophy of 'adapting bargain components to specific needs'. Now that popular third-generation personal computers are manufac­ tured by mass-production methods in highly automated plant, they have become one of the 'bargain components' of today's electronic Monitor Euent Units system designer. By adapting these inexpensive but powerful ma­ chines to the computing tasks they UA1 Collaboration meet in laboratory instrumentation environments, engineers can make substantial savings in a variety of the large exposure necessary for technology evolves. Apple Macin­ control, monitoring, data-acquisi­ thorough debugging. tosh computers can be used as tion and equipment-development On the other hand, the introduc­ cost-effective software develop­ applications. tion of international standards for ment workstations for such sys­ At the Apple Computer facility in professional instrumentation, such tems and their graphics-oriented Fremont, California, one of the as CAMAC and VMEbus, has user-interface has proved well- world's most automated factories brought numerous benefits to on­ suited to control and monitoring turns out tens of thousands of line data-handling and computing at tasks during data-taking. Macintosh computers per month. scientific research Laboratories Production on this scale permits a such as CERN. These nonproprieta­ manufacturing and testing efficien­ ry standards have made it possible MacVEE cy which cannot be approached in to interconnect electronic equip­ the production of microcomputer ment of varied origin, and have At CERN the entire Apple Macin­ systems specifically for the much greatly facilitated the work of inte­ tosh family of personal computers more limited professional instru­ grating large multiprocessor data- has been provided with compatible mentation market. acquisition systems whose ele­ direct access to VMEbus and CA­ Mass-produced hardware is only ments are developed by numerous MAC systems, thus marrying the one aspect of the personal com­ research collaborators in dispersed features of these popular mass- puter 'bargain component'. It is institutions. produced computers with the ver­ widely recognized that the develop­ The high degree of parallelism satility of international standard in­ ment of efficient, reliable and well- possible in a distributed configura­ strumentation systems. The sys­ documented software requires an tion of VME multiprocessors min­ tem is called MacVEE (Microcom­ investment which may substantially imizes dead-time in the read-out of puter Applied to the Control of exceed that of designing the hard­ a large detector and allows sophis­ VME Electronic Equipment). Mac­ ware. When this investment is ticated triggering and filtering sys­ VEE has become by far the most spread over the vast user-base of a tems to be implemented. Experi­ popular personal computer instru­ popular personal computer like the ence has also shown that systems mentation system ever used at Macintosh, the software can be based on standard instrumentation CERN, and several hundred are cur­ made available at a very attractive can be readily reconfigured as rently in use at research laborato­ cost per system, and it receives needs change, and enhanced as ries worldwide.

10 CERN Courier, October 1988 Ahead of its time

Apple Computer Industrade AG, Apple Computer Division, Hertistrasse 31 CH-8304 Wallisellen, Telefon 01/830 50 40

CERN Courier, October 1988 COMPUTER BARN SA Macintosh in the laboratory Official Swiss Distributor for

BASF The complete CERN MacVEE family - Borland International Central Point Software A410: MICRON - MacVEE interface for Macintosh II Computer Associates Cricket Software V370: MacVEE VMEbus master module Dayna Communications 392: Mac-CC CAMAC crate controller Funk Software Kinetics 7323: MacPlinth and installation kits for Logitech Macintosh, Macintosh Plus and Macintosh SE Orchid Technology Persoft from Peter Norton Computing Quark Software Publishing Corp. Systematics TMC WordPerfect Corp. TMC S.r.l. For the name of the dealer closest to you, please contact Computer Barn SA, 14 Via Sabotino - 40131 Bologna - Italy 10 rte du Port,1299 Crans/C61igny Tel: (051) 436975 Tlx: 214662 TMC BO I Fax: (051) 437511 Tel.: 022 / 76 40 55 - Fax : 022 / 76 40 58 MacVEE is a development of CERN, but CERN does not accept responsibility for the quality or performance of the product. Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer.

12 CERN Courier, October 1988 The earlier 68000-based Macin­ byte of the zero-divide exception with CERN recommendations for tosh computers are highly inte­ vector. As secondary features, it M68000-based CAMAC port con­ grated machines having no back­ generates a composite video signal trollers, and additional functions plane bus structure. To implement for external remote monitors and have been chosen to be as compa­ a high-performance interface to accommodates up to 128 Kbytes tible as possible with VME CAMAC these computers, MacVEE makes of EPROM (erasable programmable branch drivers and Type A2 crate direct connection to the internal mi­ read-only memory) for permanent controllers, as appropriate. crocomputer bus. This allows se­ library enhancements. It provides a Each CAMAC crate occupies lected VME and CAMAC crates to single-level abort, internal/external only 64 kbytes of the Macintosh appear within the 68000 micropro­ reset switches, a watchdog timer address space, and all Mac-CCs are cessor address space, so that no and a LED array which indicates the accommodated within map 8. The special software drivers are re­ VME crates being accessed. addresses they occupy remain free quired to access them. Macintosh internal interrupt for VMEbus use in maps 1 - 7. The connection is made by an codes are decoded on MacPlinth, Mac-CCs allow CAMAC crates to electronics plinth, MacPlinth, which merged with external interrupt be accessed without an interme­ attaches to the computer and be­ sources, and re-encoded before diate VME crate and branch driver comes an integral part of it. Mac- application to the 68000 micropro­ in pure CAMAC environments. In Plinth incorporates a memory map­ cessor. MacPlinth assigns three in­ this case the CAMAC library sub­ per accessing an external address terrupt levels to Macintosh internal routines can be accommodated in space exceeding 100 Mbytes, in auto-vectored (AV) interrupts, MacPlinth EPROM. The MacVEE up to 8 VME crates or up to 7 three levels to external user-vec­ bus uses RS485 differential trans­ VME crates and up to 8 CAMAC tored (UV) interrupts, and one non­ mission, and permits greater crates, in any mix. The mapping is maskable level to external AV in­ ranges than an EUR 4600 branch. controlled by a Schottky 'emmen- terrupts for fail conditions and CA­ Mac-CC is equipped with an EUR tal' PROM (programmable read-only MAC demands. It offsets the user 6500 auxiliary controller bus, sup­ memory) which stores a 4-bit des­ vector numbers to reference re­ porting optional multiple controllers criptor for each of the 256 served random access memory. in a CAMAC crate, and is compati­ 64Kbyte segments of the 16 VME crate access in all MacVEE ble with standard LAM graders. Mbyte address space of the micro- systems is provided by a VMEbus ESONE standard CAMAC subrou­ processor, and a 3-bit map selec­ master module incorporating a re- tine libraries have been written for tor. lease-on-request (ROR) data trans­ Fortran-77 and several Basics. The emmental PROM allocates fer bus (DTB) requester and a 3- the free addresses, and those oc­ level VMEbus interrupt handler cupied by the incomplete address operating in conjunction with the MICRON decoding of Macintosh internal processor in the Macintosh. The hardware facilities, to VMEbus module includes slot-1 functions With its floating-point coprocessor, cheese', while assigning 'holes' to (system clock, SGL bus arbiter and internal hard disk, high-resolution the addresses actually referenced global crate data-transfer time-out). colour graphics, enhanced toolbox by the system software. Any It can be employed as a system ROM, optional paged MMU, net­ group of segments can be mapped controller, or as a normal DTB working and UNIX capability the as common area, and code in such master in a multi-processor sys­ 68020-based Macintosh II is an at­ an area has access to resources in tem. tractive personal computer for in­ any of the VMEbus crates. The em- strumentation applications in scien­ mental PROM pattern can be readi­ tific research. ly changed to adapt to computers Mac-CC The Macintosh II has an open ar­ with different memory capacities, chitecture based on the Apple Nu- or to address changes in different Direct access from the Macintosh Bus, an adaption of the NuBus versions of the System file or Ma­ family to CAMAC has been pro­ whose specification is currently cintosh hardware. vided by Mac-CC, a memory-map­ IEEE proposed standard P1196. MacPlinth uses as control regis­ ped dedicated CAMAC crate con­ This specification is in turn a devel­ ter the unused most-significant troller. It is designed in accordance opment of the Texas Instruments

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14 CERN Courier, October 1988 Data acquisition monitoring by a MacVEE system for the UA 1 experiment at CERN's proton-antiproton collider. The interactive di­ splay can diagnose abnormalities in the ex­ perimental statistics, and the operators are advised by Macintosh speech messages.

NuBus specification published in 1983. The original NuBus was con­ ceived at the Massachusetts Insti­ tute of Technology, and was devel­ oped by MIT and Western Digital Corporation between 1979 and 1983. Prior to its adoption by Apple, NuBus was little used outside Al workstations by Texas Instruments land Lisp Machine. NuBus is a time- quantized asynchronous computer backplane bus structure, with geo­ graphical addressing and multi­ plexed 32-bit address and data lines, which supports multiple mas­ ters with distributed arbitration. Its key design goals are claimed to be sparsity of mechanism and system architecture independence. The Macintosh II is provided i—i i • i—i—i—i with six Apple NuBus slots. It can . 20 40 E0 BO 1Q0 be interfaced to MacVEE systems able option. Applications by MICRON (MacVEE Interface The large addressing range of Card Resident On NuBus), compati­ the 68020-based computer allows MacVEE systems are used for ble with the MacVEE VMEbus mas­ a full 128 Mbytes of contiguous many different applications at ter modules and Mac-CC memory- Superslot address space to be de­ CERN, at other research Laborato­ mapped CAMAC crate controllers dicated to each external system ries, and by industry. A few exam­ used with the earlier 68000-based and directly accessed by the micro­ ples are shown in the illustrations. Macintoshes. MICRON allows VME­ processor in 32-bit mode. MICRON CERN's UA1 software team has bus or CAMAC crates simply to itself can accommodate up to 512 created a Macintosh resident devel­ appear within the address space of Kbytes of EPROM in an additional opment system (MacSys) which in­ the 68020 microprocessor of the separate slot address space. The tegrates the real-time Fortran-77 Macintosh II, so that no special EPROM quad stores 32-bit words compiler of Heidelberg University software drivers are necessary to and can contain executable code. with an assembler, editor, linker, access them. A small part of this EPROM con­ monitor and data-communication MICRON supports all data trans­ tains configuration information {de­ utilities. At UA1, multiple MacVEEs fer operation types on the Apple claration data') which is read by the are used for the control and moni­ NuBus, and automatically performs Macintosh II slot declaration ROM toring of the experiment, as soft­ the required VMEbus operations so manager at start-up to determine ware development workstations for that the interface is transparent to the characteristics of the hardware a distributed hierarchy of VMEbus the user. All of the address non-al­ present in its slots. multiprocessors, as data-acquisi­ ignment functionality of the Macin­ As a result of the linear address­ tion consoles with an automatic tosh II 68020 is supported through ing scheme, even for multiple MI­ logging function, and as controllers to VMEbus slaves, and restricted CRON modules, no map control re­ for a farm of emulators of IBM VMEbus resource-locking is imple­ gister or common address area is 3081 mainframes. mented through Apple NuBus at­ required as in 68000-based Macin­ Other users have created gener­ tention cycles. Data caching, which tosh systems. Up to 3 MICRON al-purpose CAMAC data-acquisi­ may be introduced in future modules may be installed in a Mac­ tion packages employed at several 68030-based Macintosh architec­ intosh II to provide direct access small experiments in which the only tures, is supported as a programm- to 24 VMEbus crates per compu­ computers used are MacVEE sys- ter.

CERN Courier, October 1988 15 In this multichannel signal display, the view geometry and other parameters can be changed using the Macintosh mouse. The flexibility of such a graphical user-interface encourages the interactive approach which proves fruitful in experimental work. terns. In the development laborato­ ry, MacVEEs are used for the test­ ing of new VMEbus or CAMAC- based instrumentation. Since the software can be run entirely in the Macintosh, its integrity is safe­ guarded from problems with mo­ dules being debugged on the VME­ bus. Access to Fastbus systems has been provided via a fast se­ quencer. MacVEE tools for VMEbus and CAMAC operations have been inte­ The introduction of the Mercury's paper-tape reader! The grated directly in the Bourne-style mouse/windows/graphics environ­ CERN computer centre had also an shell of Apple's Macintosh Pro­ ment in the research laboratory at IBM 709, the first of a long series grammer's Workshop (MPW), an affordable price has spurred the of big number-crunchers. Once which will be used for the control development of new approaches to again, however, the CPU of that and monitoring of the H1 detector the control and monitoring of large machine is outclassed by the pre­ at the HERA electron-proton collid­ experiments and new facilities for sent 68020 microprocessor chip. er being built at DESY, Hamburg. small data-acquisition and instru­ This vividly illustrates the pro­ The 100 VME crates of multipro­ mentation-development systems. gress made in the last 25 years in cessors required at this experiment The MacVEE system provides the area of miniaturization, and for the read-out of over 220,000 the Apple Macintosh family with an there are indications that this may channels of data from the 2,500- intimate connection to multi-crate continue during the next 25. One of ton detector will be controlled by a VMEbus and CAMAC systems. these indications comes from Ja­ dozen Macintosh II computers with This permits direct access to inter­ pan, where the government has MICRON. national standard laboratory instru­ launched a massive R&D effort In less than four years the mentation from these popular called 'Human Frontiers'. Macintosh has evolved from a ma­ mass-produced 68000/68020- An important aspect of this pro­ chine with mediocre language sup­ based personal computers, with ject is the development of elec­ port to the preferred vehicle for their friendly graphics-oriented user tronic circuits based on protein mo­ some of the latest developments in interface and wide range of resi­ lecules. Molecular electronics re­ software engineering. Several ob­ dent programming languages and searchers are seeking to create ject-oriented languages are avail­ libraries. (Further technical details molecular components to partici­ able to customize MacApp, an ex­ are given in user manuals available pate in their own assembly, rather pandable application framework from the author, while the equip­ like the DNA molecule. Initial appli­ which implements the Macintosh ment itself is now manufactured in­ cations of such self-assembling user-interface in skeleton form. dustrially in France, Germany and biochips might be in mass storage Programming laboratory applica­ Italy.) devices, because of the very high tions by customizing MacApp can data density potential - some 4 reduce the amount of code to be orders of magnitude greater than written by a factor of 4 to 5, with a Past and Future with present optical recording tech­ corresponding decrease in the re­ niques. quired development time. To conclude it is worthwhile glanc­ But the fabrication of a full mole­ Work is in progress to provide ing back a quarter of a century, and cular computer could be envisaged, VMEbus access from Macintosh to try to glimpse what the future and such a biochip could be very HyperCard, already in use at CERN may bring over the same time much smaller and very much more for database applications. MacVEE span. powerful than any silicon chip. In­ drivers are also being developed In 1963, CERN was operating deed, biochips would be so tiny for LabVIEW, a novel software the Ferranti Mercury computer. that one could imagine their being construction environment for the This was a magnificent piece of embedded in the human brain, per­ Macintosh, combining dataflow hardware whose numerous equip­ haps as a coprocessor, the ultimate concepts and traditional program- ment cabinets occupied a very 'personal' computer. control structures with an exten­ large room, but its computing pow­ By Bruce Taylor, EP Division, CERN sive signal-processing library and a er was less than today's Macin­ 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland. graphical-element instruction set. tosh, about the same size as the

16 CERN Courier, October 1988