Basic SICS concepts

General structure

SICS is a client server system. The application the user sees is usually some form of client. A client has two tasks: the first is to collect user input and send it to the SICS server which then executes the command. The clients second task is to listen to the the server messages and display them in a readable format. This aproach has two advantages: clients can reside on machines across the whole network thus enabling remote control from everywhere in the world. The second advantage is that new clients (such as graphical user interface clients) can be written in any feasible language without changes to the server.

SICS Command Syntax

SICS is an object oriented system. This is reflected in the command syntax. SICS objects can be devices such as motors, single counters, histogram memories or other hardware variables such as wavelength or Title and measurement procedures. Communication with these objects happens by sending messages to the target object. This is very simply done by typing something like: object message par1 par2 .. parn. For example, if we have a motor called A1:

         A1 list

will print a parameter listing for the motor A1. In this example no parameters were needed. There exist a number of one-word commands as well. For compatability reasons some commands have a form which resembles a function call such as:

           drive a1 26.54

This will drive motor a1 to 26.54. All commands are ASCII-strings and usually in english. SICS is in general CASE INSENSITIVE. However, this does not hold for parameters you have to specify. On a unix system for instance file names are case sensitive and that had to be preserved. Commands defined in the scripting language are lower case by convention.

Most SICS objects also hold the parameters required for their proper operation. The general syntax for handling such parameters is:

objectname parametername

prints the current value of the parameter

objectname parametername newvalue

sets the parameter value to newvalue if you are properly authorized.

SICS variables

Most of the parameters SICS uses are hidden in the objects to which they belong. But some are separate objects of their own right and are accessible at top level. For instance things like Title or wavelength. They share a common syntax for changing and requesting their values. This is very simple: The command objectname will return the value, the command objectname newvalue will change the variable. But only if the authorisation codes match.

Authorisation

A client server system is potentially open to unauthorised hackers who might mess up the instrument and your valuable measurements. A known problem in instrument control is that less knowledgeable user accidentally change instrument parameters which ought to be left fixed. In order to solve these two problems SICS supports authorisation on a very fine level. As a user you have to specify a username and password in order to able to access SICS. Some clients already do this for you automatically. SICS support four levels of access to an instrument:

Spy may look at everything, request any value, but may not actually change anything. No damage potential here.
User is privileged to perform a certain amount of operations necessary to run the instrument.
Manager has the permission to mess with almost everything. A very dangerous person.
Internal is not accessible to the outside world and is used to circumvent protection for internal uses. However some parameters are considered to be so critical that they cannot be changed during the runtime of the SICS-server, not even by Managers.

All this is stated here in order to explain the common error message: You are not authorised to do that and that or something along these lines.