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v3.00, 3.02, 3.03, 3.05, 3.09, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, 3.16, 3.17.

v3.00 -- 31-Jul-97

1. New: GoldExI now has 16-Bit and 32-Bit versions and runs under Win3.x (16-Bit), Win95 (16 & 32-Bit), WinNT (32-Bit)
   

2. New: GoldExI now automatically detects equipment i.e. it scans the first 16 slots of NI-DAQ and determines what kind of DAQ cards are installed there. This allows run-time determination of input/output voltage ranges and gain factors. Attention: when started GoldExI tryes to detect the characteristics of DAC cards. This operation is not safe for 16-bit cards since voltage spikes may appear in the output circuitry. Therefore it is strongly recommended to disconnect experimental setup (sample) from the data acquisition system during the start time.
   
3. New: Current/Voltage setup dialog changed to allow user to choose DAQ card/channel/gain. User can choose only valid cards/channels/gain factors.
   
4. New: User can change "User Name" in File|User Name
   
5. New: Demo version is now provided as EMDAQ.DLL and emulates 3 boards and hysteretic IVC of SMALL JOSEPHSON JUNCTION
   
6. Obsolete: The export of DXB files is not available anymore. Import is still supported for compatibility reasons
   
7. New: 32-bit version has standard Win95/NT file open/save common dialog box. 16-bit version has standard Win3.x dialog with "MakeDir" button which allows to create a new directory (folder).
   
8. Changed: Now GoldExI uses NIDAQ.DLL or NIDAQ32.DLL rather than ATWDAQ.DLL. Demo version uses EMDAQ.DLL which is provided with demo version of GoldExI.

v3.02 -- 2-dec-97

1. New: GoldExI now supports PC-Lab 718 DAC/ADC cards. The DLL which emulates NIDAQ.DLL (EMDAQ.DLL) is written in IREE RAS by Igor Borisenko. This NIDAQ emulator DLL provides 6 functions of NIDAQ's API which the current version of GoldExI uses. Inside GoldExI the unique DAC/ADC card ID=31234 was allocated. It was chosen in such a way that it is very far from current NI cards IDs (1..206). The cards with ID=31234 has the following characteristics: name="PC-Lab 718 Emulator", NumOfDACs=2, NumOfADCs=8, gains=1.
   

2. New: DAC_voltage_range determination procedure is enhanced.
   
3. New: Now GoldExI checks whether NumOfDACs or NumOfADCs=0, and exits if so.

v3.03 -- 2-feb-1998

1. Bug Fixed: Now RestoreWindow works in 32-bit version
   

2. Bug Fixed: Now all child windows refresh when the content of the main window changes in 32-bit version
   
3. Bug Fixed: Now files and directories names with dots in the name are handled correctly and the problem with "disappearing" ini files is solved. Now U can create files with the names like "Magn.Field=0.35Oe.dat" and GoldExI will create "Magn.Field=0.35Oe.ini"
   
4. New: Math|(Y-Ymin)/Ymin and Math|(Y-Ymin)/Ymax. Ymin and Ymax are calculated for each curve independently. "X" in the new Y-axes title means "times".

v3.05 -- 27-may-1998

1. Bug Fixed: Ctrl+A and Ctrl+O accelerators are working now.
   

2. New: Measuring IVC family GoldExI now has a possibility to stop after each curve and wait for user to press the button. This mode is off by default and can be switched on/off in Options|Delay|Stop After Each Curve.
   
3. New: GoldExI has to support 16-bit ADCs now. I didn't check it. Your feedback is welcome.

v3.09 -- 1-Aug-1998

1. New: A great deal of work was invested to make 16-bit ADC/DAC working properly esp. current scroll bars. In 16-bit version the range of current-control scroll bar for 15 & 16-bit DAC cards is not 2¹⁵ or 2¹⁶ but 2¹⁴(limitation of Win16 API). Since 16-bit version is not yet adapted for curves containing 2¹⁶ points and more, U will not be able to reduce a DAC step on 16-bit cards up to 1 sometimes. It will be fixed later.
   

2. Bug Fixed: in configuration with 2 DAC cards, by mistake, always the 1st one was used.
   
3. Bug Fixed: Now ADC/DAC which are found are displayed in the main window if no curve is present
   
4. New: In Math|Scale it is possible to set multiply_by and divide_by factors.

v3.11 -- 07-Mar-1999

1. New: In Options|Other|RescaleAfterMeasurement check box added. It allows to keep the same scale along the axes after measurement.

2. Updated: Temperature setup dialog, and Ic(T). New kind of voltage is introduced: "T_sensor".

3. New: Options|Data Export. Now it is possible to set separation symbol among tab, space and comma as well as to avoid sorting of the curves while saving. Note, that reading the data file without corresponding ini file is correct only if data file has even number of column (format X1 Y1 X2 Y2 etc.) and all curves have the same number of points.

4. Changed: Math|Smooth, Math|Filter, Math|Skip Extra Points now show options before proceeding.

5. Changed: Now Math|Delta_Y/Ymin and Delta_Y/Ymax give result in %.

6. New: Command line processing is included. Switches/options start with '-' or '/' symbols. To include argument with spaces and special characters, quote the argument. Legal quote symbols are " (double quote), ' (quote), and `(back quote). Inside the quotes, you can use a pare of quotes to insert the single quote symbol of the same type as surrounding quotes. Examples: -i:"c:\Program Files\GoldExi\gold.ini" or -i:`Edward``s` (expands to -i:Edward`s)

7. New: user's name and ini-file now can be specified in command line using the switches -i:path_to_inifile and -u:UserName. Quote the arguments containing spaces, if needed. The obsolete User Login dialog is dismissed. Advise: create a shortcut with proper command line arguments for every user. Alternatively U can set the user name and load ini-file directly from GoldExI.

8. New: This new feature is for developers of custom EMDAQ.DLL and for those who has very new cards from National instruments not supported directly by the present version of GoldExI. In the file nidaq.ini in the same directory as GoldExI.exe U can write the description & characteristics of the new card not currently supported by GoldExI. Example:

   ;Melhaus card via EMDAQ.DLL 
   ;(emulator of NIDAQ.DLL)
   [31000] 
   name=AD-Link PCI-9112
   gains=1,2,5,10,100

   GoldExI will use these settings if it is not possible do determine the card's name and the list of possible gains automatically. It is ur responsibility to fill this settings properly. Currently only these two settings are supported.

9. Changed: Finally, the buttons 'go start' & 'go stop' as well as 'Set Start' and 'Set Stop' in Limits work with proper currents. (reported by Dima Abraimov)

10. Changed: Math|Filter now uses absolute value of noise.

11. New: Turbo Averaging (Options|Averaging) on eligible ADC cards. Instead of reading the voltage from the card N times, when the Turbo is on, GoldExI makes a single request to NIDAQ to read the voltage on the input of the ADC card N times with given time interval (max. sampling rate depends on the card) and return the array of values. The values are transferred from card into RAM via DMA (if configured properly), therefore very fast. If this function is not supported by a card, GoldExI automatically uses old-fashion way: point by point. Attention: 3rd party custom EMDAQ.DLL must be updated and include the function DAQ_Op() to work with the new version. The simplest example of this function (which just returns -1) can be found in new EMDAQ.C. Attention: The 1st tests showed that for N>=2000 some cards give erroneous results (e.g. the straight-line IVC of the resistor looks like zig-zag). Check your cards and let me know. This happens probably due to some bug in NIDAQ software. :-( The timing depends on N non-monotonically, so play a bit with settings to choose the best values for your system.

12. Updated: Now GoldExI is compiled to have 32 virtual voltages and 32 virtual currents (just in case :-) for RSFQ people). Before it was 8 and 4, respectively. If U need more, let me know.

13. Updated: multiple voltages are possible in IVF. Tip: if U measure N voltages in the same time, choose the same color for each n-th curve in ini-file e.g. create a special ini-file with such colors and load it.

14. New: Options|Load , Options|Save and Options|Save As added. Change your configuration fast (e.g. colors).

15. New: Double clicking the curve brings the curve management dialog (usually called via Tools|Curve Management) and the curve which U clicked on is selected. Note, that U have to click as close as possible to the data point on the curve since the search routine just looks for the data point closest to the click-point and then just look to which curve it belongs.

16. New: After measurement, the comment field of Picture Info dialog contains the time spent by GoldExI to measure current data set. It is useful to optimize the performance of GoldExI with respect to different settings e.g. IcH parameters, or turbo averaging parameters (number of times, sampling rate, etc...).

v3.12 -- 12.04.1999

1. Bug Fixed: Turbo averaging now works if you choose the gain factor 0.5 (reported by Lilli Caputo)
   

2. Bug Fixed: If you use N voltages in IVF, the progress indicator goes as it should up to 100% (reported by Lilli Caputo)
   
3. Changed: If the number of samples for averaging is equal to 3 or less, Turbo averaging will have no effect. This made for the cases when current averaging is 1 and voltage averaging is N, so that current channel will not try to use Turbo.
   
4. New: technique of effective filtering out 50Hz noise using TurboAveraging feature. U can filter out any frequency or even a mixture of 2 or 3 of them. See FAQ.(suggested by A. Klushin)
   
5. Bug Fixed: GoldExI was showing/reading only the fraction (64 characters) of the comment (in "Picture Info") when one opens a new plot. Now the maximum length of the comment is 512 characters.
   
6. New: Tools | Picture Info now contains a new field -- Time Spent for this measurement (to get this curve family). The value of "-1" means that this information is not available i.e. the curve family was measured to the previous version of GoldExI.
   
7. Bug Fixed: When you use Measurements | IVF and use "2 directions" in sweep1, the progress indicator was showing wrong values during every back sweep of sweep1.
   
8. Changed: In Measurements | Ic(T) all sweeps are deleted (as it should be). The user can specify the number of points directly.
   
9. Bug Fixed: In Options | Save Options As and Options | Load Options the default extension of options file is now set to ".ini"
   
10. Bug Fixed: Now Picture Info | TimeSpent is saved properly in ini-file. (Before only an integer part of it)
    
11. New: Measurements | V(T) is implemented. Also Options | V(T) setup added. Now only Delay in Options | V(T) setup is meaningful. Feedback is welcome.
    
12. Bug Fixed: Now the Picture Info contains the right information after such operations like derivative.

v 3.13 -- 14.04.1999

1. Bug Fixed: In the measurement functions which needed exactly 1 voltage, there was a bug which made then working properly only with V1 and V2 and even not always. Fixed.
   

2. Bug Fixed: After Math | Derivative dY/dX(Y) the units of X-axis were wrong (only caption).

v 3.14 -- 1.04.2000 last "free-ware"

1. New: If card name is not found in nidaq.ini GoldExI prints NIDAQ's card ID.
   

2. New: Math|Resistance&Ic now can find out where current axis is (is it X or Y) and calculate Rn and Ic without mistakes. Units are represented using common prefixes and the whole list is nicely formatted.
   
3. Bug Fixed: If printer/screen is black-and-white, GoldExI outputs text and graphics in black only. Before the graphics was black, but text was dark blue.
   
4. New: In File|Page Setup a new option was added: Use colors on black and white printers. It is sometimes useful to create colored PostScript files using B/W PS driver.
   
5. New: Very handy feature! Tired to go back and forth between Measurement window and "Virtual Voltage setup" window? Not anymore! Now clicking on the button with voltage number in the measurement window (it is situated to the left from voltage indicator where before there was just voltage number without button) you open virtual voltage setup window for this particular voltage! Enjoy!
   
6. Bug Fixed: If you measure Ic(H) sweeping field in 2 directions, the last point of the measured curve contains garbage (usually it has coordinates zero, zero). Fixed.
   
7. New: Context Menu | Curve| Style. Allows to set the style (color, symbol and linetype) of chosen curve. You can also save it into current configuration file.
   
8. Changed: Zooming with mouse now works in different way. Now, first select a rectangular area, then you can zoom or make other operations with this selection using main menu, context menu (right click and hold 300 ms) or hot keys. Fast right click is still equivalent to Zoom Extents. Right click and hold to see context menu.
   
9. Bug Fixed: If GoldExI runs without any ini file, the Averaging options say "Average zero times" which eventually results in division by zero. Now proper initialization is done i.e. bug is fixed. (thanx to P. Caputo)
   
10. New: Zoom Window/In/Out/Extents/Previous and Pan Left/Right/Up/Down. Access via View menu or via hot keys. Zoom previous recalls the last 32 zooms.
    
11. Changed: Double clicking on the curve do not bring Curve_Management Dialog. Use instead Context menu | Curve | Properties.
    
12. New: In the window "About" there are 2 new buttons: to visit GoldExI WWW page and to write an e-mail to me.
    
13. New: Now GoldExI detects unsaved files on exit and asks whether you would like to save them.
    
14. New: The main window of GoldExI has a status line (at the bottom). In the right side of it you can see the coordinates of the mouse as you move it (in physical units)!

v 3.14SR1 -- 4.05.2000

1. Bug fixed: GoldExI no longer asks to save an unsaved data when opening the file just after startup.
   

2. Bug fixed: Double click works as before i.e. CurveProperties window appears.
   
3. Bug fixed: Now right-click and context menu select the right curve.
   
4. Bug fixed: Now "reselect" with a cursor inside a selection makes cursor a zoom-cursor.
   
5. Bug fixed: Pan no longer results in the wrong zooming.
   
6. New: If you open a Picture Info window while keeping Shift key pressed, a new layout of Picture info window will be used. Try it and let me know whether you like it. The widow was stretched vertically to occupy less space on the screen in side-by-side placement with the main window.

v 3.15 -- 21.08.2000

1. New: math function 'Abs' is added to menu Math | Abs.
   

2. New: it is possible to do some mathematical manipulations (shift, scale, abs, etc.) only with one selected curve.
   
3. New: very powerful function for removing self-filed effect from Ic(H) dependences. 3 algorithms are available. see Math | Self-Field.
   
4. Bug Fixed: Zoom In and Zoom out are no longer fail when the number of major ticks is odd.
   
5. Bug Fixed: Introducing new menus into one of previous version, had a side effect -- Math | Derivative was giving right result only for the 1st time. Fixed. (thanx to Rolf Schmitz for report).
   
6. New: Math | Simple dy/dx(x), Math | Simple dy/dx(y), and Math | Integrate functions. Differentiation functions use the simplest algorithm which does not require equidistant spacing of data points. Integrate uses trapezium method to calculate the integral \int_{x_min}^{x} f(x) dx.
   
7. Bug Fixed: Math | Self Field for two curves or manual no longer reports that "index is out of curve bound" for the plot containing curves with different number of data points.
   
8. Bug Fixed: In the case when two-curve mode is disabled in Math | Self Field dialog window, Gold ExI no longer calls wrong self-field correction function (two-curve function instead manual correction function).
   
9. Bug Fixed: Multiple integrations and differentiations of one plot no longer result in "internal error" and hanging up. This was typical buffer overflow bug.
   
10. Bug Fixed: In Measurements window, the voltage value on the colored voltage indicators is no longer unreadable due to improperly chosen colors. This problem existed on the PCs with less than 16M colors i.e. where color values were based on the palette. Now GoldExI calculates proper colors taking into account current palette when measurements window opens. If the palette/color-depth changes, close and open again the measurement window.

v 3.16 -- 14.06.2001

1. Bug Fixed: When user interrupts the measurements very soon after he has pressed "Do It" button (earlier than 4 data points are measured), GoldExI no longer resets all fields in Picture Info.
   

2. New: Now in the measurement window there is a button "Options" which allows to change the options for the current type of measurement directly from measurement window. If no options is available, the button is disabled or absent.
   
3. New: The parameter "Stop after each curve/point" which can be set in Options | Delays now also affects Ic(H), and Im(H).
   
4. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer forgets the state of "symmetric" check-box in the measurement window when you close and open window again.
   
5. Bug Fixed: Asynchronous delay/wait function no longer fails. This bug resulted in wrong delays during some measurements.
   
6. New: V(T) measurement now has several new possibilities.
   • Anti thermo-EMF (Electro Motive Force) procedure
     
   • measurement of R(T) instead of V(T)
   See the whole description in the documentation (e.g. FAQ).
   
7. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer forgets to read V(T) options at startup.
   
8. New: Functionality of "V(T)&R(T) options" window is greatly improved. Now it also includes statistics (for this ini file writing function was improved).
   
9. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer fails to sweep sweep2 current in Ic(H) when start_limit>stop_limit. This was introduced during reorganization of the code.
   
10. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer beeps & hands when you push generator button having defined -Sweep1 as the first sweep current on 12-bit DAC.
    
11. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer makes a wrong order of curves when saving and 'Sort curved by number of points' in Options | Data Saving & Loading is on.
    
12. Improved: Now GoldExI scans 256 input channels to allow working with 4 AMUX-64 boards.
    
13. Improved: Now GoldExI is compiled to have 128 virtual voltages and 32 virtual currents
    
14. New: Fast Generator in Measurement window is implemented. Generator is safe in terms of voltage spikes when you switch it on and off. But is not 100% fool proof: When you use one-directional sweep generator (2Directions checkbox is off) the generated waveform is an asymmetric saw-tooth with very sharp jump from plus to minus. Take care. Read about generator in the FAQ.
    
15. New: Pressing AutoZero check box in the Measurement window now might optionally show a warning message describing pitfalls of AutoZero routine. The appearance of this warning message can be controlled via Options | Other Options | Show AutoZero warning.
    
16. Bug Fixed: Now GoldExI loads/saves General WaveForm settings correctly.
    
17. New: Now NI-DAQ-card-auto-detection routine which is executed at startup scans 256 ADC channels of each installed NI-DAQ card and is able to recognize configurations with the gap in the possible channel numbers. Such configurations happen e.g. when one has 2 (or 4) AMUX-64 multiplexor cards working in differential mode. In this case the valid channel numbers are [0..31] and [64..95]. The number of AMUX-64 cards should be properly set in NI-DAQ configuration utility (see accessory TAB for the proper NI-DAQ card).
    
18. Changed: Terminology. The delay time which was called before "The delay between SetCurrent and GetVoltage" is now called "the delay after Sweep1 is set". See Options | Delays.
    
19. New: New delay which is called "the delay after Sweep2 is set" is introduced. See Options | Delays. It affects Ic(H), Imax(H) and IVF Measurements.
    
20. Changed: GoldExI no longer calculates absolute value of voltage/resistance which is used to calculate the temperature.
    
21. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer resizes the window when you load new configuration from the ini file in which Window position information is absent.
    
22. New: You can now specify what kind of options GoldExI saves together with data file (in the corresponding ini file) and which options GoldExI loads when you open dat file. This can be specified in Options | Data Saving & Loading. These options are saved/loaded into/from ini file with the same name as dat file which is created/read in the same moment when GoldExI saves/loads dat file.
    
23. Changed: Due to the changes described above the old and new format of ini files is a little bit incompatible in particular in the part about virtual current and voltage configuration. But now the user has very good control about which options are loaded and saved each time. I recommend to uncheck loading all options and check saving those options which correspond to your measurement type. In the future I will try to teach GoldExI to understand which options are important for particular kind of measurement.
    
24. Bug Fixed: too many virtual voltages using the same channel of the same ADC card no longer results in overflow of buffers.
    
25. New: In the window where you configure virtual voltages now there are 2 additional buttons "Apply2all" under [ADC Gain] and under [Ext Gain]. By pressing these buttons you apply the current value of ADC Gain or Ext Gain to all voltages of the same type. Useful for multi channel systems.
    
26. New: Now you can also "Reset Sweep currents" only. The look of Measurement windows is changed a little bit.
    
27. New: In "Curve Style" window (Context Menu|Curve|Style) there are now additional 3 buttons which allow to apply color, line type or symbol type to all curves just with a single click.
    
28. New: New line type "invisible" is added. It may be useful when lines connecting data points obscure the view. Symbols are still visible in this case.
    
29. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer draws symbols using curve's linestyle. Instead continuous line is now always used for drawing symbols.
    
30. Bug Fixed: Undo no longer resets the date to 1.01.1970
    
31. Bug Fixed: V(T) or R(T) no longer sets the wrong curve names.
    
32. Improved: The default number of points in V(T) or R(T) is 9999. When you are ready, interrupt measurement using ESC key.
    
33. New: Now during V(T) or R(T) measurements voltage indicators are updated with the current voltage/resistance values, and the value of current sweep1 is updated also but only in R(T) mode.
    
34. New: Now Ctrl+Z also can be used to make "UnDo". This is more usual key combination for many users.
    
35. New: Math | Resistance Histogram calculates resistance for every curve and plots R(N).
    
36. Bug Fixed: When turning on new generator with more than one sweep1 currents, GoldExI no longer erroneously reports that "generator can not be started because 2 sweeps belong to different DAC cards"
    
37. Bug Fixed: When pressing 'Reset Limits' and 'symmetric' check box is checked [x], GoldExI no longer forgets to re-enable stop limit (this is fixed in SR1)
    
38. Bug Fixed: In many cases when options windows are open, the text cursor disappears from the screen thus making difficult to work in keyboard only mode. This no longer happens.

v 3.17 -- xx.xx.2002 (beta now)

1. New: Math | Statistics shows some useful statistics about each curve such as sum of all y_i, average value, standard deviation (sigma), minimum and maximum values and delta=max-min.
   

2. Improved: Math | Resistance Histogram now also sets the name of the curve to the base name of the current open file so that when you add several R(N) histograms you will be able to understand where each one belongs to. Now it there is also a possibility to undo this function.
   
3. Changed: the context menu is rearranged.
   
4. New: If selection is visible on the screen, the following math operations (selected via main menu) apply only to the points inside the selection: Filter, Smooth, SkipExtraPoints, Shift, Scale, Abs, Self-Field, Statistics (not all are implemented). Math operations which make no sense with selection will be grayed when selection is made.
   
5. Improved: AutoZero now shows hourglass cursor while measuring zero shifts since in some cases it make take few seconds, e.g. measuring 64 channels with turbo averaging on.
   
6. Changed: color and line style of selection rectangle, grid and axis captions.
   
7. Improved: About box. ;-)
   
8. New: Context menu | Selected Point | Split Curve at this point allows to split the selected curve at the selected point, so that you will have 2 curves instead of one. The point itself will disappear i.e. will not belong to either of the curves. If the selected point is the first or the last point of the curve, nothing will be done. The curve comments will become "OldComment#1" and "OldComment#2".
   
9. Improved: Delays. Before the accuracy of the delays was related to the type of OS and could be inaccurate up to 55ms/per delay. Now, under both Windows 9x and NT GoldExI uses multimedia timer with guarantied precision of 1ms. Note, nevertheless, that during long delays (e.g. of the order of 10ms and larger) GoldExI pass control to the other threads to allow other tasks to run and may loose control for longer time than necessary. In this case the delay may be longer. Although I took a special precautions to avoid such things (I request that the control should be returned few ms earlier than necessary), other high priority applications may affect delays in GoldExI.
   
10. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer forgets the state of Save Averaging options and Save Ic(H) options check boxes in Options | Data Saving & Loading window.
    
11. New: Printing of various options is added. You may choose which options to print together with the plot in Options | Printing window. For convenience, this window may optionally appear after the standard print dialog every time when you print. At the moment GoldExI uses the same font as for axes captions, but 8pt in size. If you want to print the plot from a file, make sure that the necessary options will be read by GoldExI when you open the file. To enable reading the options when GoldExI opens the file, check the proper boxes in Options | Data Saving & Loading window.
    
12. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer accepts wrong input of the Averaging options (e.g. Number of samples=1 and Start averaging from=1). This bug resulted in a "crazy" readings.
    
13. Bug Fixed: V(T) without Anti-termo EMF feature no longer gives twice as low voltage as it should. sorry :-(.
    
14. Improved: V(T) and R(T) measurements are improved in terms of speed in the case of using Anti-termo EMF feature and many channels. Before GoldExI was inverting the current from plus to minus and back to plus for every voltage (channel) which it had to measure. Now it measures all channels at ones, then inverts the current, measures all of them again and sets the current back to original position.
    
15. Improved: Now GoldExI shows Turbo Averaging status for current and voltage separately.
    
16. New: Now GoldExI can measure V(time). See Measurements | V(time) & Options | V(time).
    
17. New: Now you can see the on the screen the temperature sensor calibration curve. Choose from menu Options | Thermometer | Show Calibration Curve. Note, that Thermometer Setup is also moved into Options | Thermometer sub-menu.
    
18. Bug Fixed: GoldExI was not waiting after setting current to zero in the AutoZero procedure. Now it waits for max(DelayAfterSweep1,DelayAfterSweep2).
    
19. Improved: Now GoldExI implements line widths and symbol sizes on "per curve" basis, thus you can have different line width and symbol sizes for different curves in your plot. Control properties of curves via context menu | Selected curve | Style. Old Ini files are still compatible.
    
20. New: Now GoldExI can open a file which you specify on the command line. Thus you can associate all *.dat files with GoldExI and open them by double clicking them in Explorer or other file manager.
    
21. New: Now GoldExI support drag-and-drop as a target application i.e. you can drag-n-drop dat-files into its main window. If you drag-n-drop more then one file, all files will be add together in the same fashion as using File | Add command from menu. Enjoy!
    
22. Improved: CurveProperties window which appears when you double click the curve, now has "Move Up" and "Move Down" buttons to rearrange the curves.
    
23. Improved: Ic(H) algorithm has now "I_c prediction logic" which allows to predict the next value of I_c using linear interpolation and, therefore, accelerate the measurements. Without this option the next value of Ic was also predicted but in a more simple way: it was assumed that the next value of Ic is approximately equal to the previous value of Ic. While this new feature offers substantial acceleration on smooth Ic(H) (usually 2..3 times), it may even slow down the measurements for noisy Ic(H). This new option can be switched on and off in Options | Measurements | Ic(H).
    
24. Improved: Ic(H) options window now has technical statistics which gives some hints for the optimal choice of parameters for Ic(H) algorithm.
    
25. Improved: Ic(H) has voltage reset with stabilization exactly like in Im(H). See Options | Measurements | Ic(H) | Reset Stabilization step.
    
26. New: GoldExI can now play custom wav files when the specific measurement is complete. After measuring I-V characteristic it plays "IVC.wav" from the directory of GoldExI executable. After other measurements it plays: "Ic(H).wav", "Im(H).wav", "Ic(T).wav", "IVF.wav", "V(T).wav", "R(T).wav", "V(time).wav", "WFM.wav", accordingly.
    
27. Improved: In CurveManagement window, when you click on "Set Comment" button (or Alt+S), the current selection automatically advances to the next curve.
    
28. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer messes up with cursors when the number of points in a given curve exceeds 32768.
    
29. Improved: Now there is a progress indicator in all measurement windows which shows the percentage of the measurement done, estimated time left, and estimated total time. So, you will know in advance that you have enough time for a cup of coffee while your measurement is going on :-)
    
30. Bug Fixed: When you differentiate a curve consisting of N points with identical coordinates GoldExI no longer crashes.
    
31. Improved: GoldExI now allows to specify step=1 in measurement window and allows huge number of points (up to 2³²-1). The control of maximum point number is improved.
    
32. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer increases by 1 the number of points in sweep-less measurements like Ic(T) or V(t).
    
33. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer thinks that you have changed something when you open a file, then select File | Add, and then push cancel.
    
34. Improved: Keeping Shift while choosing Tools | Thermometer or Tools | Picture Info, open the corresponding windows of different size. The same can be done pressing Ctrl+Shift+T or Ctrl+Shift+P. In this case two windows have the same width and can be conveniently aligned on the screen.
    
35. Improved: Convenient font selection using standard font selection window in Options | Axes.
    
36. Changed: All Options related to different measurements are moved to Options | Measurements | ... sub-menu. Other options moved there too and now are called "General Measurement Options".
    
37. New: Options | Axes window now has possibilities to choose the color and line style of the axes and the grid.
    
38. New: Additional options for AutoZero, see Options | AutoZero. First, there is a possibility to exclude T-Sensor voltage from AutoZero procedure since often there is no way to short T-sensor voltage and do AutoZero measurement correctly. Second, there is a possibility to do AutoZero every time before the measurements (when user pushes "DoIt" button). For such an "on the fly" AutoZero T-sensor voltage will be always ignored and AutoZero warning will be not shown. Read about pitfalls in the FAQ.
    
39. Improved: When you load or save settings in ini file, GoldExI now offers you to load/save from/to current ini file. Before it was very difficult to understand which ini file was used and too long to search for it.
    
40. Bug Fixed: AutoZero no longer restores the values of NotConnected currents. This resulted in incorrect behavior of AutoZero in some circumstances and became apparent after I have added "Redo on DoIt".
    
41. Improved: After Ic(H), Im(H) and Ic(T) curve comments contain not only current comment but also voltage comment. Useful for the cases when one current passes via N structures connected in series.
    
42. Improved: You can call AutoZero Options window directly from Measurements window by pushing [>>] button close to AutoZero check box.
    
43. Bug Fixed: When the user switches to the next/previous virtual current/voltage in the Virtual Current/Voltage setup window GoldExI no longer re-positions the window so that it is centered relative to the main window.
    
44. Bug Fixed: Timers no longer leak when the user interrupts R(T) measurement with Anti-Termo-EMF on.
    
45. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer leaves empty curves and unupdated axes captions after you exit IVF measurements by pushing "Cancel" button in the mode when GoldExI stops and asks "Next Curve?".
    
46. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer leaks timers in Ic(T)
    
47. Improved: Ic(T) has own options, and you can specify minimum dT between points as in R(T). But there is a difference: In V(T)&R(T) GoldExI first measures the temperature and then, if |T-T_prev|>dT, it measures voltages etc. Instead in I_c(T), GoldExI first measures I_c, which can be quite time consuming, and then measures T. This is repeated for all connected voltages (curves) in a case when you measure more than one I_c(T) in the same time. Then, if at least for one of the curves |T-T_prev|>dT, then we keep the measured point for all curves and start measuring the next point.
    
48. Improved: AutoZero also can be applied to current monitors. The values of zero shift is now written in each Virtual current/Virtual voltage window and can be also seen by pressing "Show I-Mon" and "Show V" in AutoZero Options window.
    
49. New: Ic(H) can now work with junctions which are measured using 2-point technique i.e. which have IVC with series resistance. You can specify that you wanna measure such Ic(H) in Ic(H) options window. Note, that in this case Ic(H) works slower as GoldExI calls one extra GetCurrent() per each bias point it tries in addition to usual SetCurrent(..) and GetVoltage() pair. Assuming that SetCurrent(..) is much faster than GetVoltage(..), the net slowdown will be about 2 times. Of course, if you do not check sweep1 current, there will be no slowdown. Note also, that the series resistance is common for all curves, i.e., most probably you will need to measure I_c(H) dependences one by one.
    
50. New: Calculation of excess current I_e. Now excess current histogram can be drawn and excess current can is included in Ic, Rn table (see Math | Ic, Rn, Ie table).
    
51. Improved: Mathematical functions which calculate I_c, R_n, I_e. To calculate R_n and I_e you can choose between a simple algorithm (the old one) and Converging Least Square Fit (LSF) algorithm.
    
52. Bug Fixed: Curve Style window was not saving symbol size.
    
53. Improved: Measurements | I-V Family now has a possibility to specify from where the value of parameter is taken (see Options | Measurements | IVF). Now you can measure IVFs as a function of sweep2 (whatever it is), or temperature, of manually entered quantity, or as a function of automatically changing quantity.
    
54. New: Finally GoldExI uses a separate execution thread for measurement. This means that the measurement window as well as main window are responsive to incoming events. In particular:
    • Main window repaints PREVIOUS curve if necessary i.e. you can show to your colleagues what you have just measured while the next measurement takes place.
      
    • If measurement window or main window gets covered by other aplication's window and uncovered again, it repaints without problems,
      
    • You can now stop (interrupt) measurement by pressing "Stop" button. When you start measurement by pushing "Do It", the "Cancel" button becomes "Stop" button.
      
    • Before, some types of measurements like Ic(H) were not very responsive to interruption (by ESC), i.e. after pressing ESC it could take even 1 min for GoldExI to stop the measurements. Now, thanks to a newly implemented exception handler and multi-threading, GoldExI interrupts almost immediately.
55. Improved: Another Rn algorithm
    
56. New: Options | Delays | Delay after MUXing. If you measure several voltages in the same time (e.g. in multichannel system) and voltage channels have large series resistance e.g. contact resistance of 10kOhm and more, it may happen that after multiplexing ADC starts too early -- before the right voltage will settle on a proper channel. This new option allows to switch MUX first, wait, and only then to perform ADC in a usual way i.e. with all averaging, etc. Note, that this will introduce a total delay equal to the specified "delay after MUXing" times number of active virtual voltages (active=positive or negative).
    
57. Bug Fixed: Several tiny resource leakages fixed -- thanks to NuMega Bounds Checker!
    
58. New: Memory management is unified. In case of insufficient memory, a window appears which asks to close other applications to free some memory. My investigation showed that it is really difficult to run out of memory under Win9x/Me and impossible under WinNT/2000 -- Windows just swaps so much that everything freezes for 5 min before any complains from the side of application.
    
59. Bug Fixed: When in measurement window you push one of the buttons to reconfigure particular virtual current and change it from 16-bit card to 12-bit card, GoldExI no longer crash afterwards (when you push DoIt or just move a scroll bar corresponding to this current).
    
60. Improved: The phase of Ic(H) algorithm which is called "going up" is accelerated. Now after several unsuccessful steps up, GoldExI accelerates i.e. goes up in twice larger step, then 4 times larger, etc....This substantially accelerates initial stage of Ic(H) in some cases and allows to use really small (down to 1) "forward step" (use together with "prediction logic" on). The number of unsuccessful steps after which the "forward step" is doubled can be set in Ic(H) options window (see "Going up, accelerate after").
    
61. Improved: In Ic(H) oprions you can chose to use V or |V|. The old algorothm was always using |V| which allowed to measure also IVCs situated in 2nd and 4th quadrants, but it was more sensitive to noise at zero voltage and more often was showing "Can not reset" error.
    
62. Improved: By default, the colors of the curves are set along the following spectrum: Black-->Red-->Yellow-->Green-->Cyan-->Blue-->Magenta with the period of 14.
    
63. Changed: MaxDACStep is set to 256 by default. The previous default value was 4 and it was a reason of poor default performance of Ic(H) on 16-bit cards.
    
64. Changed: GoldExI is a real shareware now. To use the full version with access to NIDAQ cards, you must get a registration code (and pay $$$). Without registartion this version is fully functional except that it can not save the files. Registration info is stored in reg_key.ini and can be seen in "About" window. All current legal users will get a registartion code from me. Demo/office version does not use EMDAQ.DLL anymore and does not need registartion. For developpers of custom EMDAQ.DLL there is a version which uses EMDAQ.DLL instead of NIDAQ.DLL, but it also needs registration.
    
65. Improved: V(time) no longer causes unnecessary delays. The delays were caused by showing measured voltages after every measurement point disregarding interactivity settings.
    
66. Bug Fixed: When sweep generator can not keep up with the sweep rate, it stops and GoldExI is no longer confused about it. Before you had to restart GoldExI to make it working properly. Now, GoldExI known how to cope with such a case.
    
67. Bug Fixed: In virtual current and virtual voltage configuration window, the list of ADC channels contains hints -- the lists other virtual currents and voltages which use this ADC channel. Before, if some virtual current used an ADC channel as a current monitor, but monitoring was switched off, this virtual current was still listed as causing collisions. Now this mistake is corrected.
    
68. Changed: Now GoldExI obligatory needs nidex32.dll (included in the distribution). You can put this file either into GoldExI directory or to any directory in your path (e.g. in the same directory where your nidaq32.dll is). This nidex32.dll allows to show error information (text instead of just an error number) in the case when NIDAQ functions fail.
    
69. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer crashes when you open Curve Management Window (or Ctrl+M) and you have no curves on the screen.
    
70. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer miss some points when you delete a set of points inside selection. Usually you do it by choosing Edit | Selection | Delete Data points (or pushing Delete key).
    
71. New: While programming the waveforms you can use new symbols with the following meaning: ~ or S - one period of sine, C - one period of cosine, s - semiperiod of sine, c- semiperiod of cosine, ! - puls which is 1/4 LU long, R - random values between logical 0 and logical 1 uniformly distributed, n - amplitude 1/n (n=1..9).
    
72. Bug Fixed: Generator in Measurements | V(I_wfm) is fixed.
    
73. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer gets crazy when using temperature sensor calibration curve consisting of more than 256 entries. Now the maximum number of entries is 1024, and all extra entries above 1024 are safely ignored after showing a warning.
    
74. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer crashes when user chooses Math | Histogram | Rn.
    
75. Improved: When printing user can now choose whether to print Plot Info or not.
    
76. Improved: In IVF options user can now choose the number of significat digits when the value of parameter will be shown in the curve comment. The old default value is 4.
    
77. Bug Fixed: When Generator is on and user pushes virtual current configuration button, reconfigures virtual current and returns back to the measurement window, GoldExI no longer stops generator and puts sweep1 current into leftmost position.
    
78. Improved: The frequency of the generator can now be changed directly from the measurement window by pushing a button [>>] close to word Generator.
    
79. Changed: Generator frequency and V(I_wfm) options are now separated into different windows, see Options | Measurements | V(I_wfm) and Options | Generator
    
80. Bug Fixed: GoldExI no longer uses colors on some color printers only when "Print color on black and white printers" checkbox in File | PageSetup window is checked. Now GoldExI should determine the printer's color capabilities correctly.
    
81. Improved: In Im(H) measurement you can register the top of the step not only when the bias point jumps to higher voltages, but also when it jumps to the lower voltages (Meissner branch). Use "Jump V_step-->V<V_step is ok too"
    
82. Improved: <not finished yet>When you are in Measurements window, touch some waveform currents and set limits. This will automatically update corresponding waveform's value of logical 0 and logical 1.
    
83. New: Two new functions in Math | Series array allow to calculate Ic histograms and spread of Ic (sigma).
    
84. Improved: V(time) can now measure the time with accuracy better than 1ms using a High Frequency performance counter, if it is available.
    
85. Improved: GoldExI can now be compiled to use extented ASCII characters e.g. 'µ' instead of 'u' for micro-.
    
86. Bug Fixed: In the measurement window, if the vertical virtual current scrollbar is not at zero position and user uses "Set Start" and "Set Stop" in "Limits", GoldExI no longer sets wrong values for start and stop.[build 2886]

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