Re: Status return from EPICS device support

[Steve Lewis <SALewis@lbl.gov>]

At 1:41 PM -0500 2000/05/25, Andrew Johnson wrote:
>I have created AI or MBBI support in the past to provide this kind of
>readback status for the whole bus - each bus interface has a separate
>record which indicates whether it's working properly or not.  However this
>would be impractical if a separate status value is associated with an
>individual I/O point.

...and there is a precedent for that as well: the Allen-Bradley
drvAB rather nicely fills in the "Adapter Status" and "Card Status"
for MBBI's with quite informative strings and sets the status/severity
properly.  I don't know if anyone else ever uses it, but I always do and
put up a "tote-board" with red/gree indicators to give status-at-a-glance
for a very complex hierarchy of racks/subracks/iocards.

As Jeff suggests, the extra records are not a burden if extended to
the card level; but I agree would at the signal level.

We have done a roughly similar implementation for the Group3 
loop/device/card hierarchy, and again, produced very informative
and useful status screens.

So, go for the MBBI's, Fritz...

_____________________________________________________________________
Stephen A. Lewis                        | SALewis@LBL.gov
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