Macquisition

From: feedback@macquisition.gsfc.nasa.gov Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 07:44:32 -0400 Subject: Macquisition 1.0.1 freeware released 6/16/95 After the 0.X versions survived ...almost a year in worldwide distribution and use ...more than a year of [ab]use by NASA Macquisition 1.0.1 was released as freeware to the world on Friday, June 16, 1995. Based on feedback over the past year from users around the world, version 1.0 * has a faster MultiBASIC interpreter run your existing programs even faster * runs on any Macintosh from the greatest PowerMacs to the wimpiest Mac Plus * is easier to program customize it for your new experiments * is completely dynamic add new capabilities on-the-fly, write self-modifying programs, and more * has multi-voice sound and speech capabilities a system can literally tell you its status * has improved on-line help and demos via World-Wide-Web at http://macquisition.gsfc.nasa.gov The award-winning Macquisition and its documentation will be distributed exclusively over the world-wide-web, accessable via Mosaic, Netscape, etc. from: http://macquisition.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ( AKA http://128.183.28.241/ ) e-mail should be sent to: feedback@macquisition.gsfc.nasa.gov ( AKA feedback@128.183.28.241 ) What is Macquisition? Macquisition is: 1. the easiest way to collect data on a Macintosh 2. free 3. endless fun for your whole laboratory 4. a multi-user data acquisition system 5. a toolkit for building monolithic systems from components 6. a rapid dynamic programming environment 7. as simple to program as those old hp computers were 8. a "toy" multitasking operating system 9. all of the above What if you somehow started out with 95% of a data acquisition system built-in... What if you could simply tell the computer "read that instrument and save the data" and you didn't have to worry about how to manage multiple data types in a file - it just happened... What if all data was automagically displayable as numbers and/or strip charts... What if you could treat the separate parts of a complex and growing system as distinct parts, yet they somehow could all interact with each other as a complete system... What if you could add features without breaking something else - even install them while running, without having to stop the rest of the system... What if you could watch the entire system, graphics and all, from an unlimited number of places around the world, in real-time, without slowing down the computer taking the data... What if the whole system could run on those eight-year-old computers that are headed for the junkyard... Macquisition is a data acquisition run-time engine, designed to allow the quick creation of custom systems which communicate with laboratory equipment connected to IEEE-488 interface(s). Macquisition can simultaneously run (using its built-in multitasking "MultiBASIC" language interpreter) any number of user-written programs. These prog…