Online telecon notes for October 16, 2002

Attending:

• Connie Houchens (GSFC/ACD)
• Sharon Orsborne (GSFC/ACD)
• Jim La (GSFC/ACD)
• Byron Leas (NRL/CAL)
• Luca Latronico (INFN-Pisa/TKR)
• Dave Nelson (SLAC/TKR,ELX)
• Mike Huffer (SLAC/ELX)
• Larry Wai (SLAC/I&T-IFCT)
• Alicia Kavelaars (SLAC/I&T-SVAC, Online)
• Selim Tuvi (SLAC/I&T-Online)
• Ric Claus (SLAC/I&T-Online), minutes author

Topics:

• Core (Selim, Ric):
• Event format discrepancy between what the hardware provides an the documented plan
• TEM to be modified to match the documentation
• Affects only TKR event data
• Work progressing on Schema and Configuration loading and storing
• Received helpful scripts from Byron
• Needed slight modification to work under Qt version 3
• Alicia is looking at Byron’s Configuration script and Qt work
• Using this information to help with building the Schema and Configuration tool
• Also working on screens to display subsystem data
• Have developed a script to load a Schema from an XML file that is more performant than our initial stab
• Planning for the workshop
• Working on the agenda
• We have wireless Ethernet capability, so suggest that participants bring laptops with wireless cards for working out ideas. The Online system can either be loaded on the laptop at the home institution, or we can load it at SLAC.
• Request that participants bring their front-end electronics and cables
• We’re looking into providing VME crates, SBCs, COMM cards and pseudo-AEM/TEMs. At least the setup used by Online will be available.
• Selim made a release of the system containing constraint and EGU support
• Support for rules will follow soon
• Request that Connie and Sharon try these features out soon
• CAL (Byron):
• Working on testing the AFEE board
• Sent a set of scripts to Mike and Mark Freytag so that they can duplicate what Byron’s been doing. This in an effort to understand the problems Byron has been seeing
• These scripts need the dislin and scipy Python libraries
• Mike to schedule this work with Gunther
• SLAC’s virus checker has stripped Byron’s files from his e-mails to Mike. Byron to resend them suitably modified to escape the checker
• Still seeing parity errors at the one per 50K commands rate (system running at 24 MHz)
• ACD (Connie, Sharon, Jim):
• Solved the empty event problem of last week by using a different version of the GARC tester
• Mike asked what the plan was with the new version of the GARC that he’s received the VHDL code for
• Connie, Sharon and Jim didn’t know about this and will talk to their ELX folk (Dave Sheppard)
• Loading the new GARC VHDL onto an FPGA didn’t result in a working chip. Mike to investigate
• The new GARC is software incompatible with the old versions. Online will have to do some work before the Online system can talk to it
• When a working version is made, support for the old version will be dropped. ACD will need to upgrade their end as well
• TKR (Dave, Luca)
• Working on TKR chips and MCM issues
• Will need to start doing noise studies and threshold scans soon
• Mike asked whether infrastructure (office, computer, etc.) for Luca’s arrival at SLAC is being handled
• Tom Borden to take care of office and retrieving the workstation from UCSC
• Some combination of Dave, Mike and Ric will ensure that this comes together
• Luca and co. at Pisa tried downloading one of the versions of the Online system and found the file to be corrupted. They succeeded in downloading an older version. They’re having some difficulty understanding how to get started since there is no obvious starting point.
• Selim suggested starting with the installation instructions and the test*.py files
• Luca is concerned about not being able to do much without hardware
• Ric suggested that a lot can be done to learn how things work by working in local mode
• Selim to follow up with e-mail
• ELX (Mike, Dave)
• TEMs are being tested
• AEM has not had much progress, but Mike is keeping the pressure up
• Curt is working on the power supply and transition board drivers
• Dave is working on integration of the PSA and TEM
• Dave has powered up the TEM via the PSA and transition board
• Enclosures are stalled behind the Mechanical folks. Expecting resolution today
• Test jig to hold TEM, PSA, TKR and CAL components plus cabling has been designed
• Looking into having an instance of the jig in time for the workshop
• LCB is not likely to be completed before the end of the year
• Curt has made its driver backwardly compatible with the current COMM card software
• Will probably release a hybrid solution consisting of COMM cards, transition board, appropriate cabling, etc. (i.e., no LCB) despite the earlier plan not to do so
• IFCT (Larry)
• Working on integrated test code with two students
• Target is to verify event data synchronization between TKR and CAL
• Need to work out an Electrical and Mechanical integration plan for the EM test
• Other business
• Byron would like Online to use SciPy to speed up event data processing
• Works by sucking the event into a one dimensional array
• Ric would like to hash this out during the workshop
• Jim asked about the status of the Test Executive trade study
• No real news at the time of the Online meeting, but afterwards Ric found out that the selection of the MOC will have influence on the decision
• Currently Online is proceeding toward the EM test with the Python based system
• Byron asked whether Online could make the system more easily installable through the use of a particular technique that escaped your scribe. Selim to look into it.