Product Description

This two–width CAMAC ACB Controller (master or Slave) provides a fast and efficient interface between a CAMAC crate and a PCI slot and is designed to work with our Type 1387 PCI port.

The CAMAC Controller consists of two boards which are both connected to the ACB and driven from the 1387 PCI port via a 50–pair cable; it must be fitted with the same termination board (serial or parallel; see description below) as that used in the 1387. It can do programmed single transfers In or Out, and single–channel DMA transfers with a wide variety of modes including LAM triggering, and has a ’round–robin’ LAM scanner as is used in our 1100 range of crate controllers.

In addition, if the controller is installed in stations 24/25 it can drive Hytec System Crate Branch Couplers, in both program transfer and DMA modes.

The PCI Port is a set of 2 boards (31cm x 10cm x 1.0cm) consisting of a PCI main board which plugs into a PCI slot which carries the TX/RX daughter board.

The PCI main board handles the local buffering, interfacing and decoding with DMA control and bidirectional FIFOs, command multiplexing, repeat control, time limiter, parameter store and vector store; the TX/RX daughter board contains the I/O for the 50–pair cable connection, with serial (Type 1, usable for up to 10m) or parallel (Type 2, usable up to 20m) termination.

Features

• Programmed single transfers in both directions in the crate containing the unit.
• Programmed single transfers in both directions in branch crates using a sub–set of the Hytec System Crate protocol.
• Single Channel DMA transfers in a single crate or branch crates (if master crate controller). LAM triggered or continuous modes are available. Repeat until ’Q’ repeat until ’not Q’ or Q scan modes are also available.
• A “Round Robin” LAM scanner is provided which in conjunction with a LAM Mask register and enable bit will cause an interrupt to the host system.
• The controller will not respond to any commands from the dataway except Z with S2 which will only clear REQUEST INHIBIT if set. It will honour ACL requests and an ABORT flag will be set if an ACL device interrupts to the dataway cycle when in programmed mode.
• The controller will provide Z and C sequences when crate controller together with a front panel switch to effect manual operation of them. It will also provide both Z & C with S2 at power up to reset any branches.
• All adapter registers are capable of being read from the host.
• Any current DMA transfer may be theoretically curtailed before completion by writing to its control register in between DMA bursts. In general the results will be indeterminate due to the autonomous nature of DMA.
• The front panel on the DMA contains LED indicators for dataway cycle, DMA cycle, DEMANDS (masked LAMs) and ABORT. Each indicator is illuminated for sufficient time to be visible event with a single transfer. There are no indicators at the PCI end.