The peripheral programs on the network

There are three other peripheral programs on the network that complete the entire data acquisition chain. They are:

1. `dassrv'.
   A program `dassrv' running on the `Observer's Command desk' (see Figure 26.2) interfaces between the main GMRT control program `ONLINE' and `acq30' running on the `Host Computer'. An observer sitting at this desk hence has therefore control over both the antenna system and the data acquisition system. Commands can be entered from this desk interactively or via an observation file.

2. `collect'
   As discussed above once the LTA of the data has been done by `acq30', it is sent (along with the associated model values, times, and flags) to `collect' (which runs on the `Data Recording Host' in Figure 26.2). `collect' performs the simple job of creating a shared memory resource and placing the data it receives into it in a well specified format. Any number of programs can then access this data either for recording, archiving, or online monitoring.
3. `record'
   This is the last in the chain of Data Acquisition System (DAS). As stated earlier, this program takes the data from the sharable resource created by `collect' and writes the data in a specific format (locally called the `lta format') onto the hard disk. From here it can be transferred to tape for long term storage.