Modular Logic Machines for Industrial Control

The introduction of complex integrated circuits in the form of microcomputers, microprocessors, and single chip arithmetic processors has put a new set of tools in the hands of digital system designers. Unfortunately, many of these tools are fairly difficult to use for a large variety of industrial control applications. This difficulty can be attributed to the fact that many of these tools are simply repackaged conventional computer components and are data-processing rather than industrially oriented. The effective use of these tools requires significant engineering development of external device interfaces as well as substantial software programming efforts.