Peripheral Hardware Research Articles

The Apple Macintosh book

Updated and expanded, this is an introduction to MAcintosh technology. IT includes insight information about the Macintosh family of computers and covers an extensive list of issues including: the System 7 operating system; an introduction to and comparison of all Macintosh models, including the new Portable, the IIci and the IIfx; details on hardware peripherals; an analysis of Mac software and programming issues; advice on troubleshooting Mac problems; information on communications between Mac and other computers and much more.

A computer-based, automated, telephonic system to monitor patient progress in the home setting.

In this report we describe an automated, telephonic system to monitor the progress of patients convalescing at home. The system includes a computerized central station that is capable of automated voice communication over the telephone, using voice reproduction, and touch-tone recognition. Peripheral hardware in multiple monitored homes need include only a touch-tone telephone, but may also be augmented by inexpensive, rudimentary diagnostic aids, such as a scale for body weight, a thermometer, or a blood pressure cuff and manometer. Current central hardware includes a NeXT computer, a fax modem, and a specialized telecommunications modem developed specifically for voice telecommunication using the NeXT. The central station acts like a robotic nurse in that it asks patients a series of questions and records the responses. The subjective questions to be asked are patient individualized and pre-selected by the physician from a question menu including items targeted specifically for the patient's disease or condition. In addition, clinical data such as body weight, blood pressure, and body temperature obtained from in-home diagnostic aids may be transmitted to the central station over the telephone using touch tones. The time-of-day and frequency of calling are pre-selectable, according to the patient's preference and clinical status. Data obtained by the central station can be easily accessed by the duty nurse via menu driven software. Reports depicting significant responses as a function of time are generated in graphical format to facilitate rapid identification of adverse trends. Hard copy reports can be dispersed directly by fax. Results from a pilot study show patients with cardiac disease readily use the system without difficulty or complaints. In one patient a five pound increase in body weight was detected, which prompted the patient's cardiologist to adjust his medication. In this way automated telephone follow-up can provide early detection of complications before they become severe, making the home environment safer and more secure for convalescence and contributing to reduced health-care costs.

Peripheral hardware and a hands-on multitasking lab

Two teaching approaches are described. The first uses a set of 15 small, prebuilt hardware assemblies for microprocessor laboratories. The second, a multitasking laboratory-oriented course, lets undergraduate students carry out embedded-control projects, using a low-cost system of microcomputer boards that they wire to rebuilt peripheral boards. The hardware modules conveniently allow laboratory activities that focus on embedded hardware applications. The multitasking course goes even further into real-time systems, as well as teaching group project ideas. The programming languages used, the course sequence, and the laboratory equipment are described.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Magnetic resonance imaging simulator: A teaching tool for radiology

The increasing use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a clinical modality has put an enormous burden on medical institutions to cost effectively teach MRI scanning techniques to technologists and physicians. Since MRI scanner time is a scarce resource, it would be ideal if the teaching could be effectively performed off-line. In order to meet this goal, the radiology Department at the University of Pennsylvania has designed and developed a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Simulator. The simulator in its current implementation mimics the General Electric Signa (General Electric Magnetic Resonance Imaging System, Milwaukee, WI) scanner's user interface for image acquisition. The design is general enough to be applied to other MRI scanners. One unique feature of the simulator is its incorporation of an image-synthesis module that permits the user to derive images for any arbitrary combination of pulsing parameters for spin-echo, gradient-echo, and inversion recovery pulse sequences. These images are computed in 5 seconds. The development platform chosen is a standard Apple Macintosh II (Apple Computer, Inc, Cupertino, CA) computer with no specialized hardware peripherals. The user interface is implemented in HyperCard (Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA). All other software development including synthesis and display functions are implemented under the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop 'C' environment. The scan parameters, demographics, and images are tracked using an Oracle (Oracle Corp, Redwood Shores, CA) data base. Images are currently stored on magnetic disk but could be stored on optical media with minimal effort.

Robot grippers in systems projects

Careful integration of robot, end‐effectors, peripheral hardware and software are crucial to successful robot applications.

M300 and PC REPORT M300 Volume 3 Issue 1 1986

Less than a decade ago, local area networks (LANs) hardly existed. Today, they account for a burgeoning multimillion dollar market that promises to change the way organizations manage information. This phenomenal growth is a result of new technologies as well as institutional needs to efficiently interconnect expanding numbers of personal computers and peripheral hardware. Local area networks have grown in importance as computing services in organizations have become less and less centralized. They can be used to special advantage in situations where individuals need access to the highly specialized data of other users on an irregular and low‐demand basis.

A fast inner product processor based on equal alignments

Inner product computation is an important operation, invoked repeatedly in matrix multiplications. A high-speed inner product processor can be very useful (among many possible applications) in real-time signal processing. This paper presents the design of a fast inner product processor, with appreciably reduced latency and cost. The inner product processor is implemented with a tree of carry-propagate or carry-save adders; this structure is obtained with the incorporation of three innovations in the conventional multiply/add tree: (1) The leaf-multipliers are expanded into adder subtrees, thus achieving an O(log Nb) latency, where N denotes the number of elements in a vector and b the number of bits in each element. (2) The partial products, to be summed in producing an inner product, are reordered according to their “minimum alignments.” This reordering brings approximately a 20% saving in hardware—including adders and data paths. The reduction in adder widths also yields savings in carry propagation time for carry-propagate adders. (3) For trees implemented with carry-save adders, the partial product reordering also serves to truncate the carry propagation chain in the final propagation stage by 2 log b − 1 positions, thus significantly reducing the latency further. A form of the Baugh and Wooley algorithm is adopted to implement two's complement notation with changes only in peripheral hardware.

Apple II/FIRST-Corvus networks

Our Apple II/FIRST hardware-software configuration is a cost-effective, powerful, and efficient system for experimental control, data collection, and signal analysis of research in conditioning, neurophysiology, psychopharmacology, and psychophysiology. The present report describes the enhancement of our data-processing capabilities by the addition of peripheral hardware configured to form Corvus multiplexer networks. These networks have transformed our array of Apple II/FIRST systems into multiprocessor facilities possessing the data-processing power and flexibility of far larger and more costly mainframe systems while retaining the benefits of the markedly reduced cost, great flexibility, and high processing speed of microprocessor-based systems.

A comprehensive interactive on-line computer system for research and clinical practice in orthodontics.

An interactive on-line computer system for the measurement of cephalometric radiographs, and facial and plaster cast photographs is described. The details of the hardware (computer and peripherals) and software are provided. Numerical and graphical analysis and presentation of the resultant data are discussed. Many research and clinical applications of the system are outlined.

Synchronized Clock for DMS-100 Family

The advent of digital telephone switches, interconnected by digital carrier systems, makes it possible to route and transmit telephone and data signals virtually without deterioration over many links and through many switching nodes. No bits of the digitized speech or data, however, should be lost en route; an economical method to ensure this is to operate the entire digital telephone system (of a country) synchronously. A highly stable master frequency reference is established from which all digital switching centers derive their clocking, either directly by national distribution of the reference frequency, or through the means of the (pulse-code modulation) PCM transmission systems which interconnect the switches. Operating considerations require that the synchronized clock systems of every switch can survive outages of equipment or synchronizing links without major impact on telephone service. The present paper is concerned with the design and performance of the synchronized clock system as an integral part of a large digital telephone switching office. Clocking and synchronization hardware and software algorithms have been developed to allow a switching office to be synchronized by external reference standards or over digital carrier links. The components of the synchronization system of an office are distributed in peripheral interface hardware, digitally controlled clock hardware, and a feedback algorithm implemented in the software of the switching computer. Steady-state and dynamic behavior are analyzed for a single switch and a timing network. Mathematical analysis is supported by simulation results. Special attention is given to quantization effects and maintenance considerations.

A Simulation Model Of The Satellite Communications System I (Scsi)

AbstractThe Satellite Communications System i (scsi) consists of a half-duplex, single-channel, high-speed satellite data link, AN/UYK-20 computers, peripheral hardware, and related software to provide automatic two-way communication between the shore and a specified number of ships using a modified round robin network discipline. A simulation model was written in order to address initial software design and subsequent system performance issues without incurring the expenses of software redesign or fleet exercises. In the model, messages are generated at both shore and ships nodes according to an exponential distribution. Each message is assigned a source, destination(s), a length, a precedence, and a type from specified distributions, and is queued, processed, and routed to destination (s) via the network discipline. Provision is made for message logical unit errors, system control messages, and random access time slots. Output of the model includes the following: the mean total time to route messages fr...

Experience with the Programming Language MODULA

The new programming language MODULA has been designed by Wirth for the programming of dedicated small computers used in the real-time environment. The language is based on PASCAL; as well as a straightforward set of algorithmic features, MODULA contains features for multiprogramming and machine-specific mechanisms for referencing peripheral hardware. An extension of block structure is used to structure programs, permitting explicit control of the communication of names between distinct parts (modules) of the program.This paper describes a compiler for MODULA, written in the programming language BCPL, which runs on a PDP-11/40 computer under the RSX-11D operating system. The code produced by the compiler is run on PDP-lls under a very small executive (less than 150 words). The quality of the code produced compares well with that of compilers for other high-level languages.The use of the language is illustrated by the construction of a real-time scheduler similar to that written by Brinch Hansen in CONCURRENT PASCAL. A brief discussion is given of experience gained in the use of the language and comments made about the inclusion and exclusion of certain language features.

Experience with the programming language MODULA

The new programming language MODULA has been designed by Wirth for the programming of dedicated small computers used in the real-time environment. The language is based on PASCAL; as well as a straightforward set of algorithmic features, MODULA contains features for multiprogramming and machine-specific mechanisms for referencing peripheral hardware. An extension of block structure is used to structure programs, permitting explicit control of the communication of names between distinct parts (modules) of the program. This paper describes a compiler for MODULA, written in the programming language BCPL, which runs on a PDP-11/40 computer under the RSX-11D operating system. The code produced by the compiler is run on PDP-11s under a very small executive (less than 150 words). The quality of the code produced compares well with that of compilers for other high-level languages. The use of the language is illustrated by the construction of a real-time scheduler similar to that written by Brinch Hansen in CONCURRENT PASCAL. A brief discussion is given of experience gained in the use of the language and comments made about the inclusion and exclusion of certain language features.

Input devices for interactive graphics

Interactive graphic systems provide the potential for natural and efficient manmachine communication. In order to exploit fully this potential and provide a conceptually simple man-computer interface, the graphic input and output devices must be closely integrated. This paper classifies and surveys the basic peripheral hardware, in particular that relevant to graphic data entry, and relates the merits of each device to the interaction process.

Digital Control of Bevatron External-Proton-Beam Transport Magnets

A computer-based digitally-structured, data acquisition and control system has been developed for on-line programmed control of external beam transport magnets at the Bevatron. The control algorithm achieves flexibility to accommodate all possible modes of Bevatron operation by separating the operating cycle of the accelerator into several zones. This method allows independent processing of Bevatron field within each zone, and the introduction of zone-related time-variable functions in each of the magnet currents. Evolution of the hardware is discussed and use of small computers is considered for each well-defined project, over a time-shared single large computer. The technique utilized to provide time-sharing of peripheral hardware between small computers is described. Pertinent details of methods used to reject noise in transmission of both analog and digital data are examined. Communication between digital systems and the human operator is discussed in terms of minimizing the number of operator responses required to establish a series of functions to be performed by the system.