README.md

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# Introduction{#mainpage}
\tableofcontents

Copyright © 2020, CAEN SpA.

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# Disclaimer
No part of this manual may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of CAEN SpA.

The information contained herein has been carefully checked and is believed to be accurate; however, no responsibility
is assumed for inaccuracies. CAEN SpA reserves the right to modify its products specifications without giving
any notice; for up to date information please visit [www.caen.it](http://www.caen.it).

# Introduction
The **CAEN MCA** library can be used to control and acquire data from Hexagon, 
a compact and stand-alone 32k MCA with integrated HV & Preamplifier Power Supply.

By the set of provided functions, it is possible to manage the board configuration,
the data acquisition, the algorithm parameters and the HV power supply.

This library can be used for software development both on a host PC and on the
embedded Linux-based system running on Hexagon CPU. 

CAEN MCA library provides a very simple interface to keep backward compatibility as simple as possible
in case of new releases.

The code is fully compliant with **C99** (ISO/IEC 9899:1999) standard.

The library doesn't require other CAEN libraries to be installed, and installation packages are provided
for Windows and Linux platforms, 32 and 64-bit, including practical examples and source files for custom
user development.

# License
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

# Credits
**CAEN MCA** includes code from some third part open source projects.

Tools for discover Hexagon devices use the SSDP protocol, whose implementation is platform dependent.
On Windows it is done using the COM library.
The method is derived from an example of **Windows classic samples**:
* Source: [Windows classic samples on GitHub](https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-classic-samples/blob/master/Samples/Win7Samples/winbase/DeviceFoundation/FunctionDiscovery/Client/FunDiscovery.cpp)
* License: *MIT license*
* Copyright: *Copyright &copy; Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved*
* Author: *Microsoft Corporation*

On Linux it is done using the GSSDP library, part of the GUPnP framework. GSSDP is loaded at runtime
and its headers are needed only to compile this library.
The method is derived from an example of **GSSDP**:
* Source: [GSSDP on GitHub](https://github.com/GNOME/gssdp/blob/master/examples/test-browser.c)
* License: *GNU Library General Public License*
* Copyright: *Copyright &copy; 2006 OpenedHand Ltd.*
* Author: *Jorn Baayen*