Re: [EXTERNAL] History of EPICS

[Mathew Rippa via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Hi Patrik,

As Maren points out, UKIRT and Keck may have been the first Telescopes using EPICS 3.12-ish(?) in the 90's. I recall William Lupton (Keck) and Nick Rees(UKIRT,JCMT) spearheaded the initiative to bring it to the Astronomy community. This was later supported by Maren, Allan Honey (drvSerial/drvAscii) collaborating with Jeff Hill and later Kevin Tsubota (Keck). When the Gemini project started many of the RGO staff developed EPICS related work packages: VMIC-5588 Reflective Memory, PMAC1 support, AllenBradley PLC5, GenSub Record (Andy Foster, Andrew Johnson et al), Xycom 240/566 (now acquired by Acromag?). I believe Mary Fuka (JCMT) worked on the predecessor to EDD/DM called GDCT(spelling?). Does that sound right, Maren?

In 2009, I looked at Eric Norum's work bringing RTEMS 4.x to EPICS on PPC targets. At the time Gemini had its standard control as the mvme167 (68k) and the mvme2700 (MPC75). With Till Strauman (SLAC at the time) and Eric's help, I got the 2700 building for RTEMS 4.9.2 and it was accepted in EPICS 3.13 circa 2009. Gemini has since phased out the 167's and the 2700 is the ubiquitous Gemini controller. The 2700 now supports RTEMS 6.1 and development branches EPICS 7.

Aloha,

-Matt

On Sun, Feb 23, 2025 at 1:13 AM Foster, Andrew (Observatory Science, RAL, TEC) via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov> wrote:

Aloha Maren,

No, Observatory Sciences never bought a commercial license. But we've been involved with EPICS since the start of the company in 1998. Some of us, before that, working at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, on Gemini, and various Canary Island telescope projects.

Cheers, Andy

Sent from Outlook for Android

---

From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> on behalf of Maren Purves via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2025 10:30:53 AM
To: Hartman, Steven <hartmansm at ornl.gov>
Cc: Nonn, Patrick <patrick.nonn at desy.de>; tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] History of EPICS

 

That was a great read - finally getting around to it now - , as was
Bob's later email reply, still missing Marty, and Steve Lewis as well.

EDD/DM was written by Deb Kerstiens and I ported it to Linux after she
retired, when we (at the JAC, mostly working at UKIRT at the time,
about 2002) switched from Solaris to Linux. JCMT got EPICS later and
is using MEDM. UKIRT, now operated by the University of Hawaii
Institute for Astronomy, is probably still using EDD/DM unless their
part time software person has converted it all to Python interfaces.
We, now East Asian Observatory and only operating the JCMT, still run
EPICS 3.13.8 with some 3.14.7 (for camonitor) - and as time allows
taking some stabs at EPICS 7.

Another one of the Maunakea Observatories using EPICS, these days on
RTEMS, is Gemini (at least North).

As somebody asked about commercial licenses, did Observatory Sciences
buy a commercial license or was that after it went open source? Also,
Cosylab?

Aloha,
Maren Purves
Head of Instrument and Telescope Software
East Asian Observatory / JCMT

On Fri, Feb 21, 2025 at 11:04 AM Hartman, Steven via Tech-talk
<tech-talk at aps.anl.gov> wrote:
>
>
> On Feb 21, 2025, at 1:53 PM, Johnson, Andrew N. via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov> wrote:
>  I might be able find an online history that the late Marty Kraimer started writing,
>
>
>
> Still available on GitHub . . .
>
> https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url="">
>
>
> --
> Steven Hartman
> hartmansm at ornl.gov
>
>
>

This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential, copyright and or privileged material, and are for the use of the intended addressee only. If you are not the intended addressee or an authorised recipient of the addressee please notify us of receipt by returning the e-mail and do not use, copy, retain, distribute or disclose the information in or attached to the e-mail. Any opinions expressed within this e-mail are those of the individual and not necessarily of Diamond Light Source Ltd.
Diamond Light Source Ltd. cannot guarantee that this e-mail or any attachments are free from viruses and we cannot accept liability for any damage which you may sustain as a result of software viruses which may be transmitted in or with the message.
Diamond Light Source Limited (company no. 4375679). Registered in England and Wales with its registered office at Diamond House, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 0DE, United Kingdom.