What is ADAM?

ADAM (Astronomical Data Acquisition Monitor) consists of a number of facilities which can be combined in a toolkit approach to support a range of software, from simple applications to sophisticated, multi-tasking, observing and data analysis systems. A typical ADAM system consists of a number of tasks which communicate with each other following well defined protocols. (On VMS, each task is a separate VMS process.) Tasks are written using a standard set of subroutine libraries which provide the ADAM facilities. ADAM is often termed a software environment as, in a completely ADAM system, it is what the user's application code `sees' around itself.

ADAM was originally developed by the Royal Greenwich Observatory to run on the Perkin-Elmer computers of the INT and JKT on La Palma, for instrument control on these telescopes. The Royal Observatory Edinburgh adapted ADAM to run on VAX/VMS systems to provide the instrument control environment for UKIRT. In doing so they incorporated most features of the Starlink Software Environment (SSE) so that SSE programs were equivalent to ADAM A-tasks. VAX ADAM has now been adopted as the standard instrument control environment for the AAT, the WHT at La Palma and the JCMT on Mauna Kea as well as UKIRT. ADAM has also been adopted by Starlink as its standard environment for data reduction. Responsibility for support of ADAM now rests with the ADAM Support Group, which is part of the Starlink project.

There are several references in the following chapters to Starlink User Notes (SUNs), Starlink System Notes (SSNs) and Starlink Guides (SGs). On Starlink systems they will be found in a directory with logical name DOCSDIR. Your site manager should be able to provide hardcopies.