Blackboard is an optional program in the Windmill software suite. It lets you:
- Enter data from the keyboard: recording batch numbers or entering events.
- Process the data before recording it.
Once data has been chalked onto the Blackboard, the Windmill logging, charting and display programs can pick it up. The entered data will be time-stamped and logged. The data remains valid for a set period, after which Windmill regards it as out of date. You can store up to 20 channels of data on each Blackboard - for more channels just load more copies of Blackboard (up to a maximum of 10).
Processing Data before Recording
You may want to perform some calculations on the data before you record it. For example, some channels may be smoothed, some combined and some new calculated channels derived from the raw data. You could do this using, say, your own Visual Basic program or a spreadsheet macro. All the results, and perhaps the raw data also, are written onto the Blackboard ready for whichever Windmill programs want them.
Writing the raw and processed data onto the Blackboard keeps a complete set of synchronised readings together. If the logging application was mixing calculated values from the Blackboard with raw readings taken directly from the hardware, the time at which the samples were taken would differ because of the calculation delay. This may be significant if the signals change suddenly.
Ordering Blackboard
You can buy Blackboard from our Data Acquisition Shop for 145 pounds. See the converter below for the price in your currency.
Currency Converter
Your Credit Card Company will charge you in your local currency, according to the exchange rate on that day. This currency coverter is a guide to today's exchange rate, but note that the actual price charged by your Credit Card Company may be different to that shown.
We will e-mail Blackboard to you - saving you shipping costs. Blackboard runs with the standard Windmill suite of software, which subscribers to our Monitor newsletter can now download for free!