[Gasification] Re: Lego /Instrumentation, Control and Operation

[Mark Ludlow]

It's a bit hard to imagine why LINUX or any other complex operating system
would really be suitable for a gasifier. These are multi-user, multi-tasking
operating systems and unless we are intending to run a complete industrial
installation they are overkill. Actually, the are not so good for a large
installation, either. Even here they are interfaced to PLCs. For smaller
systems there's not much advantage either, and they're never used for
real-time control because of their non-predictable interrupt latencies.

In my experience DOS and QBASIC gets the job done without forcing one to
become a software engineer. With this combo it's possible to read or write
ports directly (for data I/O) and tab-delimited files can be written to disk
for later translation by Excel. Even when it's at its busiest, the OS
doesn't have much to do.

I love LINUX but I also have some facility with C and C++. I wouldn't
recommend such a system to anyone unless I were certain that they had MUCH
more time than money.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Arnt Karlsen
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 11:00 AM
To: gasification at listserv.repp.org
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Re: Lego /Instrumentation, Control and Operation


On Wed, 24 May 2006 11:40:48 -0500, Harmon wrote in message
<22acb24d0605240940m2ecd03ehaad2ccbc69d0fcdd at mail.gmail.com>:

>    Yes, right, I should have said "open source" not public domain.

..no, you should have said 'free software, free as in freedom, not
neccessarily like in free beer.'  I hear Microsoft has built it's early
networking on "open source" in "near public domain" and claimed that as its
own under their "EULA" contracts, simply because the "open source"
code authors didn't understand or appreciate copyright law.

..IBM now builds a lot of their business on the GPL and GPL code, because
they earn a nice fat profit doing it the GPL way.

> Although the end result is practically the same. Free for us to us, at 
> any rate, for the most part.
> 
> 
> On 5/24/06, Arnt Karlsen <arnt at c2i.net> wrote:
> > On Wed, 24 May 2006 09:28:57 -0500, Harmon wrote in message
> > <22acb24d0605240728p625c28d8r4ac9d1147cb3a074 at mail.gmail.com>:
> >
> > >    Don't try to reinvent the wheel -- I think you'll find all the
> > >    data
> > > acquisition and control software you could possible want already 
> > > exists. And, in the linux world, almost all public domain.
> >
> > ..nope.  Firmly protected for the authors and the public by the 
> > http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
> >
> > ..philosophy and enforcement:
> > http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html
> > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
> > http://www.gnu.org/
> > http://groklaw.net/
> >
> > ..this should work for gasification too, not just for GNU/Linux.
> >


--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;o) ...with a number
of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
  Scenarios always come in sets of three: 
  best case, worst case, and just in case.


_______________________________________________
Gasification mailing list
Gasification at listserv.repp.org
http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification
http://www.repp.org/discussiongroups/resources/gasification