A BYTE SHORT TAKE: SuperScope
Data Acquisition as Easy as a Mac
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Data acquisition is never a pretty sight. There are wires to
run, connections to make, and sensors to calibrate. Then there
has to be a way to store and examine all the data these sensors
serve up.
 
A microcomputer is a cost-effective means of both serving as a
data acquisition and data storage device -- as long as you can
figure out how to use the software. GW Instruments, maker of
MacADIOS data acquisition boards for the Macintosh, realized that
simply buying the board wasn't enough: You had to be able to use
it. Ideally, you want a program that converses with the boards,
displays the captured data in a meaningful form, and then saves
the data.
 
The result of GW Instrument's work is SuperScope, a Mac
application that presents analog or digital measurements from
their data acquisition boards as waveforms on a "virtual"
oscilloscope front panel, with options to save this data to disk.
Since scientists and engineers often work with an oscilloscope,
they will be able to make use of SuperScope's capabilities
immediately.
 
SuperScope displays up to eight oscilloscope-type windows, with
each window showing up to eight waveforms. Each waveform is
labelled with a unique name and is color coded for easy
identification. Waveforms can be plotted versus time,
frequency, or other signals. Like many a Mac application,
SuperScope makes extensive use of the computer's cut, copy, and
paste capabilities. You can select a portion of the waveform in
the oscilloscope window by clicking and dragging, and then cut
or copy the highlighted area to the Clipboard. Menu selections
under the Wave menu allow you to select a signal by name and
copy it to the Clipboard, either as a graphic or as a list of
text data points. You can also direct measurements to journal
files, which save the captured data as text in formats for
export to either spreadsheets or word processors.
 
SuperScope uses a modular approach to software design so you
can control peripheral devices from within SuperScope.
Extensive documentation, software libraries, and source code
are available so that you can write your own custom processing
modules. GW Instruments supplies modules for pulse analysis,
delay processing, and data transfer to and from disk. Modules
to control their timestamping board, IEEE-488 boards, and GWI
fg function generator are also provided.
 
I tried a beta version of SuperScope (version 1.0b1) on a Mac
II equipped with a SuperMac 19-inch monitor, 5 megabytes RAM ,
Rodime Cobra 210e hard disk, and running System 6.0.3 software.
To handle data measurements, GW Instruments provided their
MacADIOS II/16 data acquisition board, MacADIOS-fg function
generator, and MacADIOS ABO analog breakout box. Due to a
mailing glitch, I didn't receive a SuperScope manual. However,
by simply pointing and clicking, I was able to set up a
display, save its configuration, and make measurements without
it. Making a new display is just a click on an arrow head on
the scope window, adding a new data channel is a keystroke
away, and deciding what signals will appear on the display is
simply a matter of dragging names about inside a dialog box. It
was just as easy to build a new display,  and plot one signal
against another to get a Lissajous figure in the second window.
Changing the MacADIOS-fg function generator's output required
only a menu selection and some dialog box selections.
 
If you're familiar with how an oscilloscope operates, you
probably won't need SuperScope's manual except for the finer
points of operation. It goes a long way towards making the lab
worker's life easier handling the storage and display ends of
data acquisition. The combination of GW Instrument's MacADIOS
data acquisition boards and their SuperScope software now makes
the Mac work as a powerful tool for lab and research work. Now
if they only had some tools for making the wiring easier...
 
The Facts:
SuperScope, $990
 
Requirements:
Mac Plus, Mac SE, or Mac II family with 1 megabyte of RAM and
running System 4.2 or higher.
 
GW Instruments
35 Medford St.
Somerville, MA 02143
(617) 625-4096
 
                              --- Tom Thompson
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
