Fsc2 is a program for controlling spectrometers. Experiments are done by interpretation of scripts written in a simple language scripting language EDL (Experiment Description Language) and employing a strictly modular approach to the handling of devices. Devices are handled via modules in order to allow easy integration of new devices. Device are not hard-coded into fsc2. Instead, devices are dealt with by modules that get loaded on demand (a single instruction in an EDL script. More than 50 devices are supported, connected via serial port, GPIB, or LAN, as well as data acquisition cards, etc, e.g.;

The state of an experiment can be remotly monitored via a built-in Web server. This flexibility has been achieved by making fsc2 basically an interpreter for a rather simple but powerful scripting language (EDL, that's exactly!). This allows setting up a completely new experiment or changing an already existing one fast and easily without requiring any detailed knowledge of the internals of fsc2 or how exactly devices are to be controlled by the computer - everything needed is to become aquainted with the EDL scripting language. Moreover, an already working script for an experiment can be swiftly made to display a graphical user interface for just entering the currently required experimental parameters by adding a few extra lines and then running it through a Perl script. Terms of license are GNU GPL.

This software is to enable people to use the GM-45 or the GM-10 radiation detector manufactured by Black Cat Systems under GNU/Linux. Two versions of the GM-10 and GM-45 are available; one includes a USB adapter and plugs in to a USB port on your computer and the other version plugs into a standard RS-232 serial port on your computer, and comes with a cable for the standard 9 pin PC serial port. Currently gm4lin is a C program which is able to read data (using the serial interface) from virtually any number of these detectors (sensitivity can be selected individually, per detector e.g. because you want to use a GM10 instead of the GM45, or because you want an activity measurement with Cs137 instead of Co60) and output it to the screen, to a file or to a MySQL database. You can do the acquisition of several detectors simultaneously. It can record the number or particules going through the detector's chamber per minutes or simulate the analog needle of a Bicron RSO-50E detector, a compact, rugged, lightweight ion chamber dosemeter for beta, gamma and X-ray detection and measurements of superficial or deep doses in pulsed or static fields (each particule produces a little signal, with an exponential decay). If the activity you are measuring is quite low, then it could be more interesting to look at each particule at a time. This is the goal of the pulse mode: it shows you every 1 seconds (default value) the charge density decay of the chamber (Pulse mode versus Activity count mode). For more information click here.

• tlc54x_open (char *device) -> open the specified device and return the file descriptor;
• tlc54x_close (int fd) -> close the device;
• tlc54x_read (int fd) -> get one byte of data with one simple call from the A/D-Converter.

For more information click here.

• Closed loop experiments that may considerably speed up this traditional approach and in addition offers novel experimental possibilities on both the stimulus time-scale (> 10 ms) and the sampling time-scale (< 1 ms), i.e. dynamic clamp;
• A hardware independent modular design;
• Automatic annotation (and storage) of the data with metadata.

• C++ plugins for powerful flexibility;
• Data-analysis library.

• Basic statistics (mean, standard deviation, median, correlation ...);
• Spectral analysis: power spectrum, transfer function, coherence;
• Linear and nonlinear fits (Levenberg-Marquardt and Simplex);
• Peak detection;
• Histograms, interpolation;
• Stimulus generation: pulse, saw tooth, band-pass filtered white noise, Ornstein-Uhlenbeck noise;
• ...and many others!

RELACS completely hides all specific hardware details behind the scenes. Therefore experimental protocols can be implemented independently of the hardware used at a particular experimental setup (data acquisition board, attenuator, temperature sensors, motorized micromanipulators). This allows to use the very same experimental protocols for all your different experimental setups in your lab, no matter what particular hardware is used. Furthermore, this offers the unique possibility to share experimental protocols with other labs. Currently, an implementation based on RTAI real-time Linux and Comedi for accessing data acquisition boards is provided. For more information, click here.