I remember some very early meetings with Bob, Marty, and Jeff when I was at the SSC (Bubbatron) , I think held at LANL (AT-8). This was probably in 92/93 if someone could confirm? I don't know if Dave Gurd, or Doug Murray (now at SLAC) still read Tech-Talk, but I will try to reach out to them to see if they remember. What I seem to remember is we were advised, probably by Marty, to use the 'standard' config using Sun workstations for clients (we used about every flavor of workstation, including Sun, DEC, HP and IBM-AIX). But I am pretty sure CEBAF at that time used HP. Would Matt Stettler have been involved then? Would Joan Sage (formally CEBAF) also have been at SSC already then? Of course after this long, the timeline is hard to remember.
I found this in my notes, don't know how accurate it is, certainly not complete (GTA, SSC,...) the numeric values may have been the number of IOCs, this may have been only machines that were still running when I compiled this (probably when I was at ITER). Might be interesting to complete this list, perhaps to add names of some of the people involved.
*ITER ITER EPICS Linux TCA? 500? 2017?
MedAustron EPICS? Linux? ? 50? 2013?
*Maxlab MaxIV EPICS? Linux? ? 100? 2013?
*BNL NSLSII EPICS Linux Home ? 2011?
PSI XFEL EPICS VxWorks VME 100 2010?
SLAC LCLS EPICS RTEMS VME 100 2008
*AusSyn AS EPICS Linux PCI 30 2007
SSRF SSRF EPICS Linux ? ? 2007
* RAL DLS EPICS VxWorks VME 300 2007
SSRL Spear3 EPICS RTEMS VME 100 2004
ORNL SNS EPICS VxWorks VME 300 2005
* PSI SLS EPICS VxWorks VME 250 2002
* CLS CLS EPICS Linux VME 100 2002
SSLS SSLS EPICS ? 2002
NSRC NSRC EPICS? 2001
BESSY BESSY2 EPICS VxWorks VME 200 2001?
KEK PF EPICS 1997
ANL APS EPICS VxWorks VME 300 199?
JASRI Spring8 EPICS 1996
NSRRC NSRRC EPICS 1993
* LBL ALS EPICS VxWorks VME 100 1991
Just a minor addition:
I know that Mary Fuka came to JCMT from LANL but I do not know what
she worked on at LANL.
I was told (don't remember by whom of the two) that she and Peregrine
McGehee (now at SLAC, we worked at the Caltech Submm Observatory at
the same time, about 30 years ago) once worked on the opposite ends of
the same beamline :)
Maren
On Tue, Feb 25, 2025 at 10:47 AM Mathew Rippa <mrippa at gemini.edu> wrote:
>
> 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://urldefense.us/v3/__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.
