Microcomputers and Electronic Instrumentation: Making the Right Connections - Hardcover

Malmstadt, Howard V.; Enke, Christie G.; Crouch, Stanley R.

 
9780841228610: Microcomputers and Electronic Instrumentation: Making the Right Connections

Synopsis

The authors believe that the effectiveness of future generations of scientists depends in part on their ability to use intelligently, diagnose, and modify their microcomputer-based and electronic instrumentation.
Using a "top-down" approach, the authors present electronic concepts, principles, and technology that are impacting our daily lives. They start at the top, by providing a broad perspective of electronic instrumentation, and work down to functional modules, devices, and detailed operations. This top-down approach enables all of the pieces to fit together so that a working knowledge is developed as one proceeds through the chapters.
Written specifically for chemists, physicists, engineers, biologists, medical researchers, students, and other technical personnel who can benefit from "making the right connections" to modern instrumentation, this book will empower you to gain better control and make better use of your microcomputers and laboratory instruments.

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About the Author

Howard V. Malmstadt has been a pioneer in several areas of science and technology, including applied spectroscopy, automated chemical measurement systems, clinical methods, kinetic methods of analysis, and instrumentation for scientists. He has received national and international awards for these developments, which are described in over 150 journal publications and patents. He is coauthor of dozens of books, which were the basis of many new courses taught in hundreds of universities and laboratories throughout the world.

Christie G. Enke is a professor of chemistry at the University of New Mexico. His research interests include mass spectrometric instrumentation, especially tandem mass spectrometry and time-of-flight mass spectrometry, development of expert systems, microbiological characterization using mass spectrometry, and reaction of ions with molecules and photons. He has published extensively and coauthored several textbooks on the electronics of chemical instrumentation.

Stanley R. Crouch is a professor of chemistry at Michigan State University. He has written six books and more than 110 publications in various areas of his research interests which include, kinetics and mechanisms of analytical reactions, fast kinetics methods, continuous-flow methods, flow injection analysis, spectroscopy, liquid chromatography, and chemical instrumentation.

From the Inside Flap

Microcomputers seem to be everywhere: in our offices, our homes, our laboratories, and throughout industry. They have become essential parts of modern measurement and control instrumentation and are dramatically affecting the way measurements are made and systems are controlled. But do we have a "feel" for how they are related to our overall instruments systems? Do we really understand the multiple roles that microcomputers perform in our instruments? Could we make connections of new modules? Do we know how laboratory experiments and devices can be connected to a general-purpose computer?

This book not only answers these questions, but also presents the electronic concepts, principles, and technology that are impacting our lives, in both our professional and daily activities. Written expressly for chemists, physicists, engineers, biologists, medical researchers, students, and other technical personnel who can benefit from "making the right connections" to modern instrumentation, this book will enable you to gain better control and make better use of your microcomputers and laboratory instruments.

Beginning with the first chapter, which focuses on connecting to the new wave of microcomputer instrumentation, we use what we call the "top-down" approach. That is, we start at the top by considering the overall objectives and complete instrument systems: we provide a view of the big picture and a broad perspective of electronic instrumentation. Then we work down to functional modules, devices, and detailed operations: in chapter after chapter, we discuss in detail functional units, principles, and techniques for making the right connections.

The discussions focus primarily on the encoding, decoding, and flow of data in the instruments - the aspects relevant to your applications. Hence, a particular circuit or device is studied as one of many techniques to obtain electrically encoded data or to decode data. The focus on transformation and flow of data rather than devices is the ideal approach to understanding the operating principles of measurement and control instruments. Descriptions of modern devices and circuits are used to illustrate the discussions of data transformation concepts. Following the data flow through functional modules is also an effective way of finding a malfunction (troubleshooting) in equipment. Therefore after learning about data operations and major functional units in earlier chapters, the reader is shown in the final chapter how to apply this information in troubleshooting instruments.

The top-down approach enables all of the pieces to fit together so that a working knowledge is developed as one proceeds through the chapters.

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