Re: Active-X and Epics

[Kay-Uwe Kasemir <kasemirk@ornl.gov>]

On Sep 15, 2006, at 15:56 , Bill Nolan wrote:

> Hi all,
>     It looks like I am going to have to connect a number of devices in
> to my system that only offer active-X hooks.
>     I have two device types with widows control software that offer
> Active-X interfaces, the remainder of my controls are Epics on  
> Linux hosts.
> Is the Active_X interface form the CA_interfaces page still the  
> best way
> to approach getting the two systems to talk ?
In case you're referring to the ActiveX CA server & client stuff that
one can still get from http://ics-web1.sns.ornl.gov/~kasemir/axca/ 
index.html :
Bad idea. It was primarily developed to allow Labview to serve
data via Channel Access, but for LabView there are now better
solutions, so this has not been maintained for years.

Besides, if you wanted to use _that_ to connect your ActiveX stuff
to EPICS, it would mean:
You write a gateway program in for example Visual Basic that uses the  
Active X
controls that you got for your devices and passes data back and forth
between them and the Active X CA server or client.

> Would making a soft IOC and linking the vendor supplied Active X/dll's
> in to sub() records be a better way to go ?
Yes, that would be a much more direct way to get from an IOC database
to your devices. And I agree with Mark that writing 'proper' device  
support
is probably better than routines for sub-records, unless this is only
a 'one-of' thing that you need to handle.

-Kay