Recent developments in MX since Sept. 2000

• MacOS X port

  • Non-graphical operation fully supported.
  • Tcl/Tk GUI support.
    • Uses the Tenon port of Tcl/Tk and an in-house port of [incr Tcl].
    • This port does not yet work 100% correctly.
    • Also plan to port to the XFree86 version of MacOS X X11 support.
     

• MX support for VME crates

  • National Instruments PCI-to-VME bridge (VME-PCI8026) is now supported on Linux using the NI-VISA package.
  • MX drivers for digital I/O and the SIS 3801 MCS have been written.
   

• SIS 3801 multichannel scaler

  • Can handle more than 2000 measurements.
  • The 3801 works better as a multichannel scaler than as a single channel scaler.
  • Need to add support for external channel advance and gate.
   

• XIA DXP-2X MCA support

  • To be used with MR-CAT's 13 element detector.
  • Has been tested with the new Mesa Data Server.
  • Will be tested with XerXes later this week.
  • Soon will support up to 16 ROIs per channel.
  • The initial MX driver is very slow. Much performance optimization is needed.
  • Someday will support the acquisition of MCA spectra and ROIs in a quick scan.
   

• Quick scan support

  • MCS quick scans
    • Has been tested with the SIS 3801.
      • Via the EPICS MCS record.
      • Via the National Instruments PCI-to-VME interface.
    • Can now quick scan using pseudomotors that only depend on one real motor.
    • Routine use is awaiting the final installation of electronics to record monochromator encoder positions in the 3801.
  • Joerger quick scans
    • Has been enhanced to include the acceleration distance and pseudomotor support of the MCS quick scan.
    • Should be able to quick scan any motor or pseudomotor that depends on only one real motor.
    • Has been demonstrated to have systematic errors in the recording of positions and should be only used for measurements where this does not matter.
    • Works much better with older versions of the EPICS scaler record than newer versions.
   

• Autoscaling

  • Supports autoscaling of amplifier gains and filter settings as the detector signal goes up and down.
  • Motivated by the needs of powder diffraction, but usable for other things as well.
   

• Measurement fault and permit support

  • Allows for retry of measurements that have been judged to be faulty.
  • Allows a scan to wait for permission to proceed on each point.
  • Used by the autoscaling support.
  • Used by the APS topup interlock support.
   

• MX server related upgrades

  • The MX server now defaults to being run as a non-root user.
  • Server messages can now be sent to the Unix syslog daemon.
  • A GUI called mxcontrol has been written to allow remote control of MX servers. Not 100% complete.
   

• Motor record related upgrades

  • Synchronous motion mode.
  • Simultaneous start of Compumotor 6K motors is now supported.
  • Pontech STP-100 controller is now supported.
  • Motor speeds can be changed from the motor program's command line. You should set speed limits in your databases before using this.
  • Support for theta-2theta and Q pseudomotors.
   

• Software emulated device upgrades

  • Soft motor record now supports programmable speeds, base speeds, and accelerations.
  • Soft scaler record now supports intensity modifiers to simulate the modification of the detector count rate by amplifier gains or filters.
   

• Miscellaneous

  • MX now supports displaying a stack traceback when an MX program crashes. Implemented on Linux, Solaris, and SGI Irix.
  • Some support for writing out MCA spectra for each point in a scan. Needs to be enhanced for multiple MCAs.
   

New MX drivers added since Sept. 2000

• Interfaces

  • VME

    • National Instruments PCI-to-VME bridge (VME-PCI8026)
     

• Devices

  • Autoscale

    • Amplifier autoscaling
    • Combined filter/amplifier autoscaling
    • Filter autoscaling
    • Network autoscaling
     

  • Digital Input

    • Bit input
    • VME digital input
     

  • Digital Output

    • Bit output
    • VME digital output
     

  • Motor

    • Disabled motor
    • LakeShore 330 temperature controller
    • Radix Databox motor
    • Soft motor (heavily revised)
       
    • Compumotor multi-motor translation   (simultaneous start)
    • Q motor = 4 * pi * sin(theta) / lambda
    • Sector 18 monochromator
    • Theta-2 theta motor
     

  • Multichannel Analyzer

    • XIA DXP-2X MCA  (via XerXes or MDS)
     

  • Multichannel Encoder

    • MCS encoder
    • Network MCE
    • Radix Databox encoder
     

  • Multichannel Scaler

    • Radix Databox MCS
    • SIS 3801  (via MX VME record)
    • Soft MCS
     

  • Relay

    • Blind relay
     

  • Scaler

    • Autoscale scaler
    • MCA alternate time  (real time or live time)
    • Radix Databox scaler
     

  • Timer

    • Radix Databox timer
     

• Scans

  • Quick Scans

    • APS insertion device quick scan  (not fully tested yet)
     
   

• Variables

  • Calculation

    • XIA DXP-2X parameters