Re: A little bit of history: Life before and after EPICS...

["Faucett, John A" <faucett@lanl.gov>]

Was anyone around before EPICS was created?

A few of people on my team at LANSCE (located at LANL) were here when EPICS was being developed from its GTACS precursor, including at least one involved in that project.

What was life as a control system engineer?

PL/I and Pascal were used for front-end software, Fortran for user apps.  Starting in the '80s, channels were derived from a relational database.  About the same time we moved from an SEL 840 computer to VAXes and MicroVAXes.  Displays were character-cell for user interaction and Tektronix for graphics display.  We still use Linux-based emulators of these for a few applications.

Were labs all creating their respective control system?

LANSCE, I've heard, was the first large scientific facility operated by computer.  The LAMPF Control System (now, LANSCE Control System) was developed starting in 1965 and design-energy beam was achieved in 1972.  Pretty much the entire control system was developed in-house including the ~80 Remote Indication and Control Electronics (RICE) modules arranged in a star system.  RICE will be decommissioned in about 2018 when all the modules will have been replaced by EPICS IOCs.

What was the impact of EPICS on this development process?

We started converting to EPICS in the mid '90s.  We replaced our obsolete relational database with EPICS-like .db files.  Much of our non-accelerator controls is now EPICS.

We're in the process of adding user-specified data-taking time to EPICS.  RICE had that built in.  It is the critical feature that the LANSCE accelerator's operation depends on.

John Faucett

LANL

Correspondence