ZIO is a framework for high-data-rate I/O. The basic I/O item is a block, made up of data samples and full meta-data information, so input can be consumed offline and output cam be prepared in advance. The main use cases are waveform generation and distributed oscilloscopes, over possibly hundreds of systems spread over several kilometers. Within ZIO, the buffer and the trigger are first-level objects, and both input and output have always been supported. Data flow is a pipeline made up of device, trigger and buffer; usually the buffer is connected to char devices, but in-kernel users have been written with minimal effort.

Code is being developed at http://www.ohwr.org/projects/zio and is being submitted to the kernel.