Look Ma, No Hardware!

Abstract

Google Soft Decom and the number of hits will be tenfold over the same search last year. The migration of hardware functionality toward software is relentless. On the telemetry front, Data Bridges that take Pulse Code Modulated (PCM) signals and transform them to ubiquitous network packets make it all too easy. The need for expensive hardware such as the Decommutator (Decom), Frame Synchronizer, Digital Recorder, and Oscillograph Recorder (StripChart) will diminish sharply. Software Decom packages will feel the squeeze too, from homegrown Soft Decom software that is easier to maintain and has no licensing issues. This paper airs the dirty laundry associated with this hardware and software. Latencies and ugly temporal aberration that really plague an analyst. Also discussed is how a few packet/file formats eliminate the need for most of the hardware in a traditional telemetry data processing facility.