One of the greatest FemtoDAQ features is its embedded data acquisition software. We wrote it in Python to be as simple as possible for you to use. You probably have heard of Python. It is an interactive scripting language somewhere in between C and Fortran. The word scripting is very important. It means that you do not have to install any development tools (compilers, linkers, etc.). You can open the Python script in any text editor (we use nano), modify it, save to disk, and execute right away.
We provide several example scripts saved on the internal FemtoDAQ solid state disk. In particular, we provide the script which recorded the event files that we discussed on this website. You can use these scripts right away without any development whatsoever.
You may ask whether our scripts can be used with other DAQ hardware purchased from your favorite company XYZ. Unfortunately, the answer is "no". Our DAQ scripts interact with the FemtoDAQ field programmable date array (FPGA) which is very specific to the FemtoDAQ. Other DAQ units will almost certainly also contain some sort of an FPGA, but it will be wired in an entirely different way from ours. Therefore, our scripts will not be able to properly interact with the DAQ unit from the XYZ manufacturer.
FemtoDAQ is also equipped with a rich Graphical User Interface (GUI) which can be used for cosmic ray acquisition. We mentioned the scripts in the first place because this is how we started. The GUI was developed while we were taking the cosmic data. Please visit the FemtoDAQ website to learn more about the FemtoDAQ GUI.