Glossary
©
National Instruments Corporation
G-3
c
u
rrent sinking
The ability of a DAQ board to dissipate c
u
rrent for analog or digital o
u
tp
u
t
signals.
c
u
rrent so
u
rcing
The ability of a DAQ board to s
u
pply c
u
rrent for analog or digital o
u
tp
u
t
signals.
D
DAQ
data acq
u
isition
Collecting and meas
u
ring electrical signals from sensors, transd
u
cers, and
test probes or fixt
u
res and inp
u
tting them to a comp
u
ter for processing.
Collecting and meas
u
ring the same kinds of electrical signals with A/D
and/or DIO boards pl
u
gged into a comp
u
ter, and possibly generating
control signals with D/A and/or DIO boards in the same comp
u
ter.
DAQ-STC
A c
u
stom ASIC developed by National Instr
u
ments that provides timing
information and general-p
u
rpose co
u
nter/timers on National Instr
u
ments
E Series boards.
DC
direct c
u
rrent
decode
Used in the context of motion encoders. The two channels of a motion
encoder indicate information abo
u
t movement and direction of movement
of an external device. Decoding refers to extracting this information from
the signals on these channels.
device
A pl
u
g-in data acq
u
isition board, card, or pad that can contain m
u
ltiple
channels and conversion devices. Pl
u
g-in boards, PCMCIA cards, and
DAQ devices that connect to yo
u
r comp
u
ter parallel port, are all examples
of DAQ devices.
DIO
digital inp
u
t/o
u
tp
u
t
DLL
dynamic link library—a software mod
u
le in Microsoft Windows
containing exec
u
table code and data that can be called or
u
sed by Windows
applications or other DLLs. F
u
nctions and data in a DLL are loaded and
linked at r
u
n time when they are referenced by a Windows application or
other DLLs.
