Daqarta v1.14 with DT2821 driver, Y2Kure

[Bob Masta <masta@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Last summer, participants of this list inquired about
Daqarta support for Data Translation products.  I am
pleased to announce that a driver for the DT2821 family
is now available for download, as is the latest version
of Daqarta (v1.14).

This DT2821 driver greatly extends the capabilities of
the boards compared to other systems.  To the best of my
knowledge, Daqarta is the only system that offers
simultaneous high-speed acquisition and signal generation
with the DT2821 family... Data Translation says these
boards can only do one thing at at time.

What's more, Daqarta can generate signals at sample rates
that greatly exceed the acquisition rate limits, using a
technique I call "hypersampling".

For example, Data translation specs the DT2821 at 50 kHz
for the ADC and 130 kHz for the DACs.  These numbers are
conservative:  With a DT2821 generously loaned by Dave
Moody for testing, the upper limit of the ADC was found
to be nearly 80 kHz, and the DACs went to 200 kHz.

Yet Daqarta can run the ADC at 50 kHz while synchronously
generating independent tone bursts at 200 kHz on each of
the DACs... an "aggregate" of 450 kHz, all on a lowly
386DX-40 system.  Continuous acquisition / generation is
more system-speed dependent:  A 200MMX Pentium could
only manage 100 kHz output rates with a 50 kHz input rate.
(Your mileage may vary.)

This single driver can be configured for any model in the
DT2821 family:
  DT2821
    -F-16SE
    -F-8DI
    -G-16SE
    -G-8DI
  DT2823
  DT2824-PGH
  DT2824-PGL
  DT2825
  DT2827
  DT2828
  DT2829
  DT21-EZ
  DT23-EZ
  DT24-EZ
  DT24-EZ-PGL

However, only the DT2821 model was available for test.
I would greatly appreciate reports from users of other
models, and would be glad to offer assistance where
needed.

And by the way, you can also download Y2KURE from the
Daqarta site.  This tiny CONFIG.SYS utility will cure
the Year 2000 problems of absolutely any BIOS, even those
that are supposedly "incurable".  No tests needed; you
just "set it and forget it", and your system will have
the correct date through 2099.

Comments and questions are always welcome.

Bob Masta
tech@daqarta.com

              D A Q A R T A
 Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
  Shareware from Interstellar Research
         http://www.daqarta.com