Ocean current meter data recording, retrieval, evaluation, and modification

Includes bibliographical references (page 75)This project concerns itself with the recording of several types of digital oceanographic and meteorological data on cassette and reducing this data to engineering units with the aid of a computer. The reduction of cassette data becomes difficult when an attempt is made to standardize methods of reducing dissimilar tape formats. Attempts have been made in the past to reduce different formats individually with some success but little work has been done to standardize these methods. Although an attempt was made during the project to process data the way it was formatted by the various standard instruments, one of the formats ultimately needed to be modified in order for standardization to be possible. There are uncertainties and risks associated with unknown formats of future instruments to be procured.\ud The method of data reduction recommended involves the interfacing of a cassette reader with a memory and interfacing the memory with the computer. The memory acts as a buffer between the cassette reader and computer. The memory reads and stores cassette data until the computer is able to accept it and then clocks the data into the computer at a rate slower than the maximum read rate