The continued support of the Cutlass control language in the power industry

Cutlass is a purpose built language and application system for control applications. It was designed by the Central Electricity Generating Board in the late seventies/early eighties, at a time when control systems were becoming ´computerised´, in order that the UK power stations could be automated using a common standard for its control and monitoring applications. The emergence of the IEC standard, 15 to 20 years into the life of Cutlass, presents us with an interesting situation. The IEC61131 standard is particularly interesting because there are some surprising similarities between it and Cutlass. We offer a perspective on IEC61131 for others to share.