Special Purpose Dive Computers
Some dive computers are able to calculate decompression schedules for breathing gases other than air, such as nitrox, pure oxygen, trimix or heliox. The more basic nitrox dive computers only support one or two gas mixes for each dive. Others support many different mixes.
Most dive computers calculate decompression for 'open circuit' SCUBA where the proportions of the breathing gases are constant: these are "constant fraction" dive computers. Other dive computers are designed to model the gases in some 'closed circuit' SCUBA (rebreathers), which maintain constant partial pressures of gases by varying the proportions of gases in the mixture: these are "constant partial pressure" dive computers. There are also dive computers which monitor oxygen partial pressure in real time in combination with a user nominated diluent mixture to provide a constantly updated mix analysis which is then used in the decompression algorithm to provide decompression information.
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