Glossary

D

Driver

(also device driver) Software that allows access to a particular hardware module. Many device drivers are contained in the MIDAS package.

E

Equipment

in MIDAS refers to a Software Equipment and its related Hardware Equipment (if any).

Hardware Equipment

Modules (e.g. a set of scalers) grouped together for convenience of data readout

Software Equipment

A software entity that usually includes collecting the data from a set of Hardware Equipment and outputting it into the Data Buffer as Data Banks. Software Equipments are usually found in Frontends.

F

Frontend (task)

A MIDAS application built by the user which usually has access to hardware equipment in use by the experiment.

Frontend code

User-written part (e.g. frontend.c) describing sequence of actions to acquire the hardware data. It is linked with a fixed framework mfe.c to form a Frontend..

O

ODB

Online Data Base contains all the information needed for an experiment

R

Run

A run starts when the MIDAS system receives a Start Transition , and continues until it receives a Stop transition

T

Transition