Common-User instruments on the INT are provided with their own software
packages, which run under ADAM on the dedicated PE3210 Instrument Computer.
This machine is found in the air-conditioned
Instrument Computer Room, adjacent to the Telescope Control Room,
together with two Magnetic Tape Units, an EGLE disk drive, a Line Printer,
and the System Console. The system is powered via the Buffer Set (Chapter
). Two user terminals are located in the Telescope
Control Room: one acts as the interface to the instrumentation computer
software, and is more commonly called the ADAM terminal
(see Section ), whilst the other one stands
on a desk at the East end of the Control Room and is for general use during
daytime only, when the PE3210 is frequently used for software development.
Beware! Never use the latter terminal to work on the computer during
observing: its use will substantially slow down the ADAM control software,
and may even cause data to be lost.
A full discussion of the PE3210 is somewhat outside the scope of this INT User Manual. This section only deals with starting (e.g. after a power failure) and stopping the computer. However, because the Instrument Computer is also available to observers with private (non common-user) instrumentation (in consultation with the La Palma staff), additional information about the PE's Operating System, its text Editor and PE-specific Tape Handling, is provided in the appendices. Those notes are intended to assist with such private use, and indeed may also be of interest to observers who require a more detailed knowledge of the Instrument and Telescope Computers. More extensive information can be found in the documentation bays in room D102 (to be reached via the software room, D101) on the first floor of the INT building. Tape handling under ADAM, in particular the initialisation and writing of FITS formatted D-Tapes during or after observing, is described in detail in the relevant instrument manuals.
The normal practice is to leave the PE3210 Instrument Computer
up and running during daytime for development work. At the end of the night,
after data taking and tape dumps have finished, the instrument control
software is shut down as described in chapter .