On-Line Data-Acquisition Systems in Nuclear Physics, 1969: Chapter 3 - SOME TOTAL COSTS

On-Line Data-Acquisition Systems in Nuclear Physics, 1969, by H. W. Fulbright et al. National Research Council is part of HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Chapter 3: SOME TOTAL COSTS

D. SOME TOTAL COSTS

Of the 46 system reports, 35 were sufficiently complete to be useful in a detailed analysis. A histogram showing the distribution of these in total cost is given in Figure 13. One immediately sees that few systems cost less than $100,000; in fact only four were reported in this range. However, it must be pointed out that information was solicited regarding only those systems which had cost approximately $50,000 or more. The most common range is $100,000 to $200,000, with 12 examples. The total cost of the system at the Yale Van de Graaff laboratory was not known when the histogram was prepared, but the hardware is reported to cost about $750,000 to duplicate and about $655,000 to copy, so if allowance is made for the cost of developing the software and for other manpower uses the cost would rise substantially. (This system is not one of the 35. The conditions under which the Yale-IBM development are being carried out are so special that manpower costs cannot be assigned on the basis used in other cases. Chapter 2, Section E.)

A breakdown of total costs for the 35 systems is given in Table 9, showing separately the total amounts involved in each of the four categories defined above. Evidently, about 60 percent of the cost goes for standard computer hardware, while about 40 percent goes for special hardware and software required for data acquisition. Table 10 shows separately the hardware and labor costs in the DAS item. Evidently, hardware is twice as expensive as labor in this case, on the average.

FIGURE 14 Cost of standard peripheral equipment plotted against central processor costs for 36 systems.

FIGURE 15 Cost of data-acquisition subsystem plotted against central processor costs for 36 systems.

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H. W., Fulbright et al. 2013. On-Line Data-Acquisition Systems in Nuclear Physics, 1969. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42613/42613-h/42613-h.htm#Page_61

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