CAT AND MICE: Computer-assisted tomography with a micro programmable engine

A MICroprogrammable Engine (MICE) has been designed and constructed in the DD Division of CERN, using ECL bit-slice technology. It combines the speed and power of a micro-programmable processor with the convenience of a minicomputer by emulating the PDP-11 instruction set. The basic execution time is 105 ns. This processor is used to read out two high-density proportional chambers that constitute a positron camera for medical applications. The speed of the processor allows a preliminary three-dimensional image to be created in real time: the problems and delays of storing data and subsequently processing them off-line are avoided, for a cost the same as that of a small minicomputer. (3 refs).