PZ-TIO Manual
Version 1.01
© 2022 XIA LLC
18
counters for the VETO and SYNC inputs, as well as the TOTAl_TIME counter, and keep
incrementing them again until the stop time is reached. One can then compute a VETO
input rate during the data acquisition time. Obviously, this functionality can be expanded
for some real data acquisition if users feel the need to do so. The key point here is that
things happen at points in time that match the time of the WR clock master to ns precision.
3.3 User Interface Options
There are a variety of interface options to operate the PZ-TIO. They range from basic
terminal and file I/O to plug-ins for data acquisition or data analysis software.
Fundamentally, the PZ-TIO communicates through generic interfaces such as serial port
and Ethernet, so that any program emulating a serial port and reading files from a network
drive can be used to operate the system. A few examples are listed in the following sections
3.3.1 Terminal
At the most basic level, users can log in to the PZ-TIO with a terminal program and execute
the C programs to set up and read status (e.g.
./progfippi
and
./runstats
).
Settings are modified by editing the settings file settings.ini with a basic text editor like VI.
Results are files on the PZ-TIO’s SD card, which can be viewed with a text editor or copied
to mounted network drives.
This environment may appeal most to users familiar with Linux, and also allows
modification and recompilation of the C programs with the built-in gcc compiler.
3.3.2 Terminal and Webpages
For direct graphical feedback, users can log in via terminal as in the preceding section, but
view results as a webpage. The PZ-TIO is running a web server, and the output files are
formatted as plots or tables on webpages with a variety of java scripts.
While still requiring familiarity with Linux, the graphical feedback makes for an easier
setup and a better presentation of the results.