Introduction

MVLCSPecTcl is a version of SpecTcl, basedon VMUSBSpecTcl that allows SpecTcl to mechanically unpack and histogram data taken with the MESYTEC MVLC VME crate contoller using the ```fribdaq-readout```` program. The slight differences in data format necessiate a separate program.

This document applies to SpecTcl version 7.0-003 and later.

Supported devices

When VMUSBSpecTcl was written, several devices no longer directly supported by FRIB/NSCLDAQ were, and still are, supported by it. These devices are not supported by fribdaq-readout and, therefore, are not supported by MVLCSpecTcl:

• The MASE readout system used at Indiana University.
• The Washington Univerity ASIC readout system, HINP and PSD versions.

Furthermore, the MVLC does not include an internal scaler as the VMUSB does, therefore the VMUSBScaler is not supported.

Using MVLCSpecTcl

Note that the string $SpecTclHome refers to the top level directory of a SpecTcl installation that supports MVLCSpecTcl, e.g. /usr/opt/spectcl/7.0-003

The same script infrastructure used to setup VMUSBSpecTcl is used to set up MVLCSpecTcl. The program itself is in $SpecTclHome/bin/MVLCSpecTcl

Extending MVLCSpecTcl

The directory $SpecTclHome/MVLCSkel includes what you need to start extending MVLCSpecTcl. This includes the following files:

• CStackUnpacker.{h,cpp} - if you want to add additional unpackers to the software.
• MySpecTclApp.{h,cpp} - The SpecTcl main class, in case you want to add additional event processors to the event processing pipeline.
• Makefile - Makefile (you might need to extend) to build MVLCSpecTcl.
• SpecTclInit.tcl, SpecTclRC.tcl - sample initialization scripts.