Glossary
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National Instruments Corporation G-7 AT-MIO-16X User Manual
derivative control a control action with an output that is proportional to the rate of change
of the error signal. Derivative control anticipates the magnitude
difference between the process variable and the setpoint.
device a plug-in data acquisition board, card, or pad that can contain multiple
channels and conversion devices. Plug-in boards, PCMCIA cards, and
devices such as the DAQPad-1200, which connects to your computer
parallel port, are all examples of DAQ devices. SCXI modules are
distinct from devices, with the exception of the SCXI-1200, which is
a hybrid.
DIFF differential mode
differential input an analog input consisting of two terminals, both of which are isolated
from computer ground, whose difference is measured
differential a way you can configure your device to read signals, in which you do
measurement system not need to connect either input to a fixed reference, such as the earth
or a building ground
digital port See port.
digital trigger a TTL level signal having two discrete levels—a high and a low level
DIN Deutsche Industrie Norme
DIO digital input/output
DIP dual inline package
dithering the addition of Gaussian noise to an analog input signal
DMA direct memory access—a method by which data can be transferred
to/from computer memory from/to a device or memory on the bus while
the processor does something else. DMA is the fastest method of
transferring data to/from computer memory.
DNL differential nonlinearity—a measure in LSB of the worst-case deviation
of code widths from their ideal value of 1 LSB
DOS disk operating system
down counter performing frequency division on an internal signal
DRAM dynamic RAM