Chapter 9. Alternate Software for DAQ

In the preceding chapters, we sat up our system in somewhat a "Lab" or hypothetical conditions; that is, we assumed that all necessary tools (hardware and software) are provided as we needed them. The second premise throughout those chapters was that our hypothetical goals would be completely fulfilled by what tools we used. In reality, in most cases we have to work in mixed mode situations where we do not have the luxury to need only "simple" measurements or to be able to use equipment all built by the same manufacturer (so that there would not be any cross incompatibility) and with all connections, cabling, and software working in perfect harmony; all using the latest and greatest versions of software without crashes, freezes, and blue screens.

In fact, in more cases than not, engineers need to work with systems that are all or partially inherited from other engineers or previous tasks and they include a mix of hardware and software. Obviously, there...

Industry direction

The falling rate of profit, and attempt to maximize profit, as well as technological innovations and a few other minor factors have forced manufacturers into two main directions:

• Standardization:

  No longer is it profitable to have components of a product to be built in-house by any given manufacture's own design and specifications where they would have to absorb the cost of R&D and manufacturing as well as maintaining a fleet of supporting factories for non-essential parts and segments of a product. It just cuts into profits and worse yet, others can do it better. As an example, Nikon can make the camera, but Leica M provides better lenses than Nikon can.

• Modulation:

  Effective modularization of a system, and portioning each device to a smaller daughterboard and sub system would vastly reduce the cost of remain and maintenance. Imagine data acquisition systems that have a main body and may be a single screen, but they can accommodate an array of modules. Such a system once...