dxp Release Notes

See known problems for information on problems each release.

Release 2-6 (18-Oct-2007)

Release 2-5 (20-Sept-2006)

Release 2-4 (17-May-2006)

Release 2-3 (11-August-2005)

Release 2-2 (29-Mar-2005)

Release 2-1 (23-Mar-2005)

Major re-write of the software. Previously the DXP device support for the MCA and DXP records was using the Xerxes library from XIA. This is a low-level library, and required that the EPICS software know what XIA model was being used (Saturn, DXP2X, etc.) This releases uses the XIA Handel library, which is a higher-level library. The EPICS software no longer needs to know what hardware it is talking to, and no longer needs to implement the algorithms to convert high level concepts (e.g. peaking time) to low-level device parameters.

Added significant new features to the software, including the ability to acquire and plot the baseline history and ADC trace data. This greatly improves the diagnostics available to the user. The EPICS software now has most of the features of the XIA Kepler and MESA software.

Most high-level parameters are now in physical units (e.g. microseconds, keV) rather than integer DXP device units.

Added support for running the EPICS IOC on Windows to control the Saturn. This means that a Saturn or Vortex detector can now be run by a Windows laptop, which is attractive for portable applications.

Improved Linux support by not requiring the user to have root priviledge to run the IOC.

Changed from using the EPICS MPF module to using the new ASYN module. This improves debugging support.

Improved multi-element detector support. There is now a single database for multi-element detectors, and all of the logic to synchronize acquisition and copy parameters from detector 1 to all detectors is done by a State Notation Language Program. This greatly simplifies adding support for a new detector with a different number of elements, since only the MEDM screens now need to be changed, not the databases.

The commands required in the st.cmd startup file, and the files required to configure the hardware have changed significantly. This is because Handel and Xerxes do things quite differently. Users will need to look at the example iocBoot directories to convert existing IOCs.

Release 1-2 (June 2004)

Added 1element_dxp.db, 1element_dxp.adl, dxpTop.adl, single_dxp_top.adl.

Dependencies now include calc, sscan, and autosave modules. No longer depend on std module.

Fixed clock on X10P (Saturn) model, was 400nsec, actually 800nsec

Release 1-1 (January 2004)

This is the first release of the synApps dxp module.  Prior to this the support for the XIA DXP models was provided in the synApps CAMAC module.  This version runs only on EPICS 3.14.

 

Suggestions and Comments to:
Mark Rivers : (rivers@cars.uchicago.edu)
Last modified: March 29, 2005