Previous Article Next Article Table of Contents
Computers and the Mountain (1Sep92) (from KPNO, NOAO Newsletter No. 31, 1 September 1992) Last summer we began to upgrade the data acquisition computers on Kitt Peak by replacing the venerable DEC 11/73s with the various Sun computers which had previously been used primarily for data reduction. This decision was driven not only by maintenance headaches but also by the desire to use 2048 2048 CCDs in something approaching an efficient manner. This first step also involved new data acquisition software, "ccdacq" in IRAF's ICE package. While the reviews of these improvements were favorable, we also heard cries for more computing power and more disk space! This summer will see the completion of this plan with the installation of more powerful Sun computers at almost all of the telescopes. Our overall philosophy is to integrate telescope control, instrument control, data acquisition, and data reduction into a common window-based environment that will allow flexible and effective use by, most often, two astronomers and a telescope operator. Three criteria underlie our plan: the number of different computer platforms shall be minimized; we shall provide sufficient computing and disk capacity for the 90% situation, not the median; and we shall have spares for all systems. At most telescopes two computer display consoles, each driven by a separate cpu, will have a number of windows open to instrument control, data acquisition, and data reduction for use by the observers. The arrangement of these windows will be left to the requirements and desires of the observers. We continue to use Sun computers, but we have moved to Sun's SPARC technology as the MC68000-based CPUs in our old Sun 3 PCs are now orphaned. In general, we will be installing Sun SS-IPXs to complement the existing SS-2s. The smallest disk configuration is 2.2 Gbytes, with 5.2 Gbytes to be available at the 4-m. Each telescope will have Exabyte and nine-track tape drives; a DAT will be available at the 4-m and at a computer to be located in the administration building. We will upgrade to SS-10-30s at most of the telescopes later in the year to provide adequate computing capacity for the large format CCDs, including the soon-to-be `mini-mosaic.' All of these steps will still only for a little while the cries for more computing power and more disk space! Bruce Bohannan, Steve Grandi, Jim Davis, James Hutchinson for a cast of thousands
Previous Article Next Article Table of Contents