DANIEL: a dynamic acquisition & numerical information environment & language and RIVKA: robust intelligent vector crunching application (virtual instrument)

Standard hard-wired instruments are being replaced with digital systems for data acquisition and signal processing. Traditional operating system and software design principles are not suited to the design of high-performance real-time systems such as virtual instruments. The authors have developed such a system to serve as a neurophysiologic instrument. Classical principles such as the separation of the operating system and the application, error checking, the assignment of operations to the system or application, low level configuration control and machine-independent design, have all been substantially revised. The result is an operating system and virtual instrument uniquely suited to real-world instrument design, yet capable of co-existing with other operating systems