a user to estimate the data rate capacity of a wireline logging system such as system 100 when being executed the software may be stored in a volatile computer readable storage element such as computer 39 s main memory typically dram storage or in an external or internal cache memory typically sram of a microprocessor or set of microprocessors at other times portions of the software may be stored in a non volatile storage element such as a hard disk floppy diskette cd rom dvd magnetic tape flash memory device and the like referring now to fig6 a flow diagram illustrates an embodiment of a method 130 for determining the suitability of a tool string for use in a well bore portions of method 130 may be implemented as or executed by computer software initially a tool string is defined or specified block 132 by an engineer specifying the tool string includes specifying not only the modules that are needed based on the measurements or data in which the customer is interested but also the acquisition modes of those modules from the specified tool string a required data rate is computed block 134 in one embodiment the tool string is specified as a computer model in some form of hardware description language based on the described tool string a computer program may determine the required data rate using archived empirical data some form of heuristic determination method or a combination of the two one or more characteristics of the actual wireline system are then measured block 136 to enable the determination of the wireline 39 s data rate capacity in one embodiment the measured characteristic s include the cables 39 snr the wireline measurement and characterization are typically performed at the well bore site before.