Develop a Real-Time Solution
Ship It as a Windows Product
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Bellevue, WA, May 23, 2006 -- End users often need a real-time solution but want a Windows product. Now you can give them both. Microstar Laboratories, Inc., maker of Data Acquisition Processor (DAP) boards and systems for data acquisition and control, has combined the DAP 840 board with the new DAPstudio software as a development and runtime package to let you give your customers and end users the real-time solution they need and the Windows product they want.
Real-Time Response Adds Extra Degree of Freedom
DAPstudio makes it easy to develop a PC-based measurement and control system with one or more DAP boards. Each DAP board gives your system an additional processor running a real-time operating system – DAPL – that you control from a Windows application. This extra resource gives you room to make your application even better. It frees your application from system delays. It lets you apply computing power when and where needed. It means you can sample data and control a process anywhere, anytime. You can analyze spectra in real time. Your application responds reliably: in time, every time.
Two or more DAP boards, in the same PC or on a network, can work together as a single synchronized system using DAP-to-DAP communications. You not only can use DAPstudio to develop a system like this, you also can use DAPstudio to run it from a PC on the network – with no custom PC software or PC software from other vendors. Microstar Laboratories recently delivered a 16-board system to a customer with exactly that requirement.
Configuring the DAP Board
DAP boards acquire data by converting analog signals into digital values. These stream through conceptual pipes that you set up in DAPstudio. The onboard processor performs any required operations as it transfers data from pipe to pipe. You choose these operations from the more than 100 available in DAPL. A typical application may require six or seven of them. The commands issued to DAPL determine exactly what low-level tasks the DAP will perform, and how it will respond with control signals. The commands configure the DAP for the application. DAPstudio lets you specify commands by clicking on the appropriate tools as you design the system, and it then lets you save the working configuration as a complete DAP application. At each step in the development process, the next step presents itself as both obvious and compelling.
Command Modules
An optional Developer's Toolkit for DAPL lets you rewrite any sequence of DAPL commands – or any algorithm – as a single custom command in C or C++. One or more of these custom commands form an application-specific command module, downloaded to DAPL on system start-up. DAPstudio, or any other Windows application that uses DLLs, then can use these custom commands as well as the built-in DAPL commands. If you want a command module specific to your application and you do not have the time or resources to create one yourself, Microstar Laboratories can do it for you.
Conclusion and Next Step
You can give your customers and end users what they want – a Windows product – as well as what they need: a real-time solution. Microstar Laboratories offers you a way to do this with a DAP board and DAPstudio software. The company provides unrestricted versions of both hardware and software for evaluation at no charge. You can download a full version of DAPstudio right now.
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Editorial Overview:
End users often need a real-time solution but want a Windows product. You now have a way to give them both. Microstar Laboratories, Inc., maker of Data Acquisition Processor (DAP) boards and systems for data acquisition and control, has combined its DAP 840 board with the new version of DAPstudio software as a package. Each DAP board gives your system an additional processor running a real-time OS that you control from Windows. You can use DAPstudio not only to develop your application, but also to run it – from any PC on a network – with no other software. The company provides unrestricted versions of both hardware and software for evaluation at no charge. You can download a full version of DAPstudio today.
Note to the Editor:
Microstar Laboratories suggests this text as a caption for the available image:
Black Diamond Engineering uses a DAP board in a PC-based instrument that performs in-place diagnosis of control valve problems.
Microstar Laboratories, Inc. claims Microstar Laboratories, Data Acquisition Processor, DAP, DAPL, and DAPstudio as trademarks. Other organizations may claim – or may have registered – as trademarks any trade names, logos, and service marks that appear in this document but not in the list above.
Microstar Laboratories makes it a practice to use an appropriate symbol at the first occurrence of a trademark or registered trademark name in a document, or to include trademark statements like this with the document.