Data acquisition?

[Matthias Brennwald]

Dear all

I have a gas chromatography system in my lab (essentially this: http://www.thermo.com/com/cda/product/detail/0,1055,18759,00.html 
  ). The machine talks to a computer via the serial port and an  
ethernet connection (to contol the machine and to acquire data). While  
the system does come with software to control the machine and manage  
data acquisition, I'm looking for something that gives me a bit more  
control over the raw data. I thought that maybe Octave would provide a  
nice basis for such a system. However, I have no clue if and how it  
will be possible to control the machine from within Octave and get the  
data into Octave. I tried Google, but I wasn't very sucessful (I also  
tried a Google search with Matlab instead of Octave). I'd be glad for  
pointers and comments regarding this idea... is there a way to make  
Octave or Matlab talk to my machine?

Matthias

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Matthias Brennwald
Käferholzstrasse 173
CH 8046 Zürich
+41 364 17 03