User`s guide

E-Prime User’s Guide
Appendix A: Timing Test Results
Page A-9
Analyze the timing test results for long-term stability using E-DataAid (see Getting Started Guide-
Tutorial 4: E-DataAid). To examine the data in E-DataAid follow the steps listed below:
1. Open E-DataAid via the Start menu and load in the data file (e.g., RefreshClockTest-1-
1.EDAT).
2. From the Tools menu, select the Analyze option.
3. In the Analyze dialog, click the Load Analysis button and select the analysis file
(testname.anl).
4. Read the comments field, on the lower part of the Analyze form, to obtain details of the
analysis.
5. Click Run to process the analysis.
6. Click Excel Plot (requires that Excel is installed on the machine). Plot and Print the
results for the lab notebook on machine timing precision.
7. Print out the text file or read into Excel the table listing of all the fields of the test run
screens by printing the file (RefreshClockTest-#-#.OUT).
The impact on the data of missed ticks is determined by the percentage of missed ticks. We
recommend that the percentage of missed ticks be less than 0.1%. The following is an example
of a good result (Figure 6); all runs had less than a 0.04% missed tick rate. Note, a high rate of
missed ticks early in the run is likely caused by the operating system stabilizing the running of the
program.