Data acquisition system

The general layout of the data acquisition system will be the same as for the HMS-SOS system. Similar to the HMS-SOS system, the HKS and ENGE spectrometers each will have two read-out-controllers (ROCs). One each will be inside the spectrometer shield house. The other will be in the counting house. Two additional ROCs will be in the counting house, one houses the trigger supervisor and scalers, the other houses scalers only. This makes a total of 6 ROCs, which typically are Motorola VME CPUs. There are now two different scenarios, depending on whether the Jefferson Lab developed F1 TDCs will become available in time to be employed for the experiment:

No F1:

Without the availability of the F1 TDCs, the wire chambers of both spectrometers will be read by Fastbus LeCroy 1877 multi-hit TDCs. Therefore, all ADC, TDC, and scaler electronics is Hall C standard. The existing readout software will be adopted for the new configuration by simple cut-and-paste.

With F1:

The wire chambers and the ENGE hodoscopes will be read by F1 TDCs housed in the spectrometer huts. The readout is not Hall C standard, however, it is assumed that the Jefferson Lab electronics group will provide the necessary modules.

In conclusion, it should be safe to state that adopting the current Hall C DAQ software to the HKS-ENGE configuration does not require new software development by the collaboration. What will be required is manpower to modify existing software.