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Positronika
had quite a tough job explaining what a network was and especially what to use
it for. A few years later they quit the industrial network market; they no
longer exist. It was a good product, only 10 years too early. 1986 In the mean
time, I got my degree in Computer Science (with specialisation in
datacommunications), and went to work for Philips IAS, in the area of VMEbus, Unix,
and real-time kernels. This didn't have anything to do with industrial networks,
until a moment in 1990, when Philips decided they were going to make the
controller chip for the ISA SP50 fieldbus, a project team was formed, and I was assigned to write all the
software. With collegues, we visited all sorts of conferences in exotic places,
but before we even got started Philips decided to quit. Somebody apparently
noticed that the ISA SP50 work didn't move along that fast... Again I got
assigned to doing real-time kernel work, and ported the Motorola VME-Exec kernel
and the associated development system to HP-UX. This project was also cancelled
after a year. A project with X.25 was then done, but since all software was
bought, it was not much fun. In the mean time, the department I worked for was merged with
another department developing PLC's. Because of my network experience, I was
assigned to develop the datacommunications boards for this PLC. 1994 We
started off with a proprietary protocol called PPCCOM. Additionally, we had been
tracking Profibus developments in Germany for more then a year, did courses (and
my German improved quite a lot!) and had bought a starterkit from Softing to
play with. A major event in technical automation every year in Germany is the
well-known Hannover Messe, and marketing suits decided we ought to have a
Profibus-controller. The Messe was in April, so we had three months to develop
the hardware, implement the protocol, interface it to the PLC, and get it to
communicate with something. We contacted a Karlsruhe-based company called
I-Tec, one of the inventors of Profibus (Prof. Bender). For a more $40000
we bought the source of the protocolstack for a 8051, but we got the schematics of the
hardware for free, and set to work. When the PCB's arrived after a week, we
compiled the code, put it in an EPROM, inserted it into a socket, powered the
board up, and .... it didn't work. After a some debugging, we found two errors
on the PCB. After fixing, we got the board up-and-running by initialising it
manually. So i still had one month to go to implement the PLC-interface and
build a demo. Luckily it all worked out and two PLC's happily communicated with
each other and an Omron slave during the Messe. 1995 With the Profibus-controller now on the
market, we expected sales to skyrocket. Unfortunately that didn't happen, even
though many customer stressed that "You must follow open protocols
otherwise we don't buy". Almost
nobody in the Netherlands knew what Profibus was, how to work with it, where to
get documentation, how to troubleshoot, etc. This made we start writing articles
for magazines explaining the technology. Several
other companies decided to form a Dutch User's Group, with Philips as chair. It
organised the first-ever Profibus seminar in this country, and an attendance of
at most 50 people was expected. To everybody's surprise, more than 300 people
wanted to attend, so we divided them over two days. Next year, the user's
group decided to build a large demo-network on a major Dutch fair. The evening
before we all went to Siemens to install the hardware and get the agreed demo's
up-and-running. The collected Profibus "experts" of a whole country
were unable to get it working. So we split the single network in three segments,
and I got my demo up in half an hour. I left for home, and heard later that
those companies who stressed that Profibus is a piece-of-cake, had to work until
deep into the night and then still didn't get it to work. In the mean time, I
had been busy developing boards for other networks as well. A Modbus / JBus
board was made, a CAN-board with the SeleCAN protocol for a remote I/O system,
an Ethernet-interface for downloading and debugging programs in the PLC, a
network for fast mirroring of data in eight PLC's, a CAN-board with a redundant
network interface, a CAN-board for controlling 400A power-supplies, an
AS-Interface gateway, a Bitbus-board, a Profibus/DP board, and a CAN-board
with a proprietary protocol for controlling drives. We had developed IEC
61131/5-style functionblocks as API for the user's program, years before anyone
heard of NOAH and VIGO and DCOM. Unfortunately nobody seemed to understand the
concept of network-independent interfaces, and the IEC 61131/5 died silently. 1996
Because of the lack of knowledge in this country about industrial networks, I
had started in 1993 with writing articles for Dutch magazines about all aspects
of their use, implementation, benefits, equipment, installation, etc. With a
collegue I also wrote teaching material for a technical college. In 1996
there was so much material available for a book that finding a publisher was
simple. The book was ready in december 1996, and since this is only a small
country it has remained the only book about this subject. In the course of 1997,
I left IAS for greener pastures. Industrial networks were just getting known in
the Netherlands, and there was an enormous lack of knowledge, I decided to
develop a course about the basics of industrial networks. In cooperation with
the Mikrocentrum Eindhoven, I offer this
course 4 times a year. In 1998
we also developed a Profibus course, and in 2000 we added an
industrial Ethernet course, with plans for more! Since I don't work for a
vendor, there is no commercial interest in promoting this or that system more
than other systems. The advantage of being non-aligned is that you can tell the
facts, and don't have to worry about sales. For over three years in a row, time
spent in giving courses had doubled each year. In addition I continue writing
for magazines (such as "Aandrijftechniek", "Automatie",
"Bits & Chips", and "Automatie"). And, of
course, keeping the Fieldbus Reference List up-to-date. And this
is all in spare time ... my normal job is in the R&D department
of a machinebuilder in the Eindhoven area of the Netherlands. |