Requirements

The requirements in some key words

Hardware:

Information about the required pc

You will need a rather generic PC for this program. To use the PD-MF(S) DAQ boards you will need a spare pci slot. UEI also provides PCI express cards, they also should work with this program, but I haven't tested that...
For the pc the "the more - the merrier" approach is a good one. In general the program is not really resource hungry, but since the slightest timing delays may have really unwanted effects, you better should use a powerful maschine. A Pentium 4 may do well (in fact I used a Pentium 4 2.4 GHzfor a long time), but a multicore cpu is highly recommended for this multithreaded program (it really benefits from several cores). Intel or AMD is a matter of taste though...
Note: During experiments don't run other demanding I/O processes like webbrowsing or the likes (take special care about auto updating programs)!

Information about the required DAQ board

This program is for usage of a data accquisition borad from UEI. It has been tested with the UEI PD2-MFS-4-500 borad. It should work with all PD2-MF(S)-xx-xx boards. The PD2 boards are pci boards. UEI offers also other board for e.g. PCI express and since UEI offers a uniform framework for all their boards, the program should work also with this kind of boards. But this hasn't been tested.
Data accquisiton boards from other manufacturers do not work with this program, there is no independent standard for data accquisition boards available.
The earlier drivers by UEI had some issues, but since the release 3.4 (or 3.5?) it runs quite stable. UEI now provide a powerful framwork to progam their boards, probably the program could be stripped down a lot now.

Information about the required LED board

The visual stimulation requires a device compatible to the blue LED stimulus board as designed by the electronic workshop from the faculty of biology at the University Bielefeld.
In particular this board consists of 48x48 ultrabright blue LEDs. They are organized in 6 rows and 6 columns of 8 LEDs width. The board is not a matrix display, but uses a combined vertical and horizontal address scheme (selected by bit #11 and #12 of the PowerDAQ board). To generate a pattern you first need to specify one direction and after that the other direction, then an apply bit is set (bit #15).
Note: This LED board assumes for all bits low=true and high=false!
In the following there is an address scheme for the 16 bit control used for the Blue IO program. Abbreviations used:
RC# = register content
RA# = register address
HORI = horizontal address
VERT = vertical address
NPIB = amplifier control (briged mode)
NPIV = amplifier control (voltage clamp mode)
WRITE = apply content to the LED board

Bit # .0....1....2....3....4....5....6....7....8....9...10...11...12...13...14...15.
. . . .R....R....R....R....R....R....R....R...................H....V..............W.
. . . .C....C....C....C....C....C....C....C....R....R....R....O....E....N....N....R.
. . . .0....1....2....3....4....5....6....7....A....A....A....R....R....P....P....I.
. . . .........................................0....1....2....I....T....I....I....T.
. . . ..................................................................B....V....E.


Information about the amplifier control

For electrophysiological experiments the program is able to select the amplifier operation mode. This is done by a two bit TTL control. Each bit controls one mode. Setting a bit to "high" selects the mode.
The DAQ board has a 16 Bit output (0-15). A total of 14 bits are used for the control of the visual stimulus. Bit #13 selects the bridged mode, bit #14 the voltage clamp mode. Connect these bits (and ground of course) with the according TTL control inputs of the amplifier (in case of the npi SEC 10 these inputs are located as BNC connectors at the back plate of the amplifier).

Information about the required operating system

The program runs fine with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Earlier versions of windows are not supported. probably the program will also run on Windows Vista and Windows 7. But due to lack of a system (Windows 7) or interest (Windows Vista) I have not tested these operating systems.
There is also a half ready Linux version of the program, but since the timing under Linux when using default methods is not much better than under Windows, that appoach was no longer pursued.
of course I would have done a MorphOS version - if only a driver for the PowerDAQ board was available for MorphOS. At least on that OS the timing probably would have been no issue...

Information about the required PowerDAQ Software suite by UEI

To sucessfully run this prgram you will need the PowerDAQ software suite V3.6 or later. Data accquisiton software from other manufacturers do not work with this program, unfortunately there is no independent standard for data accquisition boards available.
The earlier drivers by UEI had some issues, but since the release 3.4 (or 3.5?) it runs quite stable. UEI now provide a powerful framework to progam their boards, probably the program could be stripped down a lot now.
The latest PowerDAQ framework is freely obtainable from the download section on the UEI website. Unfortunately the website by UEI is quite a mess, you need to create an account and need to "shop" the software for US $ 0.00. Be prepared to get a phone call from UEI later about new products and the likes. Quite boring...

Information about the required WinUAE Commodore Amiga emulator

To successfully run the program you need to run the Commodore Amiga emulator WinUAE in the background. This is required to improve the timing of Windows. WinUAE triggers another operation mode which provides a more precise timing. Elicitation of this mode could have included in BlueIO itself somehow, but I decided to just go the WinUAE route. it is pretty easy:
Direct your favorite browser to www.winuae.net and download some version of WinUAE (I used a 0.8.21 release a lot, but the recent 1.6 releases do at least as well, so I suggest to go for the recent release). Once downloaded, run the installer. You may also need an Amiga Kickstart ROM (any version will do) and tell WinUAE in the preferences where the kickstart file is located. The kickstart file includes the basic OS of the emulated Amiga, ROM files are easily to find by using google. Note: Mind you, that these files are still under copyright and you either need a physical copy of the (e.g. some old Amiga at the attic) or a legal purchase (i.e. Amiga Forever by Cloanto).
Of course you can launch a full Amiga system, but this is not required by BlueIO - but the emulator must run somehow.

back to the Blue IO main page

back to main page and contact information
--
latest change: 31-08-2009 -- (c) U. Beckers