The development of an inexpensive, portable, versatile, microprocessor based data acquisition system

Abstract

An inexpensive, portable, versatile, microprocessor based data acquisition system is presented. The design and development of the system hardware and software is described. The system is software intensive consisting of 2 Kbytes of monitor program and 1 Kbyte of application programs. It is configured to operate on a Z-80 microprocessor running at 2 MHz. It is programmed using a microcomputer through a serial port to meet specific requirements of data to be acquired which include calibrating specific input devices. A maximum of 16 analog signals in the range ojO-5 Volts can be simultaneously monitored by this system. Data is logged in the system in two modes. In the normal mode it acquires data at a maximum rate of 1 reading in 2 microseconds. Whereas in the interrupt mode with the real.time dock it takes 1 reading in 10 milliseconds. The main board storage capacity is 5 Kbytes but it has an additional capacity of 40 Kbytes 8H the RAM expansion card.