S13MMI —  Man-Machine Interface and Workstations  
Paper Title Page
S13MMI01 Workstations as Consoles for the CERN-PS Complex, Setting-Up the Environment 446
 
  • P. Antonsanti, M. Arruat, J.M. Bouche, L. Cons, Y. Deloose, F. Di Maiopresenter
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
 
  Within the framework of the rejuvenation project of the CERN control systems, commercial workstations have to replace existing home-designed operator consoles. RISC-based workstations with UNIX®, X-window¿ and OSF/Motif¿ have been introduced for the control of the PS complex. The first versions of general functionalities like synoptic display, program selection and control panels have been implemented and the first large scale application has been realized. This paper describes the different components of the workstation environment for the implementation of the applications. The focus is on the set of tools which have been used, developed or integrated, and on how we plan to make them evolve.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI01  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI02 General Man-Machine Interface Used in Accelerators Controls: Some Applications in CERN-PS Control Systems Rejuvenation 452
 
  • M. Boutheon, F. Di Maiopresenter, A. Pace
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
 
  A large community is now using Workstations as Accelerators Computer Controls Interface, through the concepts of windows - menus - synoptics - icons. Some standards were established for the CERN-PS control systems rejuvenation. The Booster-to-PS transfer and injection process is now entirely operated with these tools. This application constitutes a global environment providing the users with the controls, analysis, visualization of a part of an accelerator. Individual commands, measurements, and specialized programs including complex treatments are available in a homogeneous frame. Some months of experience in current operation have shown that this model can be extended to the whole project.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI02  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI03 The Replacement of Touch-Terminal Consoles of the CERN Antiproton Accumulator Complex (AAC) by Office PCs As Well as X-Windows Based Workstations 456
 
  • V. Chohan, I. Deloose, G. Shering
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
 
  With aging hardware and expensive maintenance and replacement possibilities, it was decided to upgrade the CERN Antiproton Accumulator Complex (AAC) touch terminal consoles with modern hardware. With significant amount of operational application software developed with touch terminals over 10 years, the philosophy adopted was to attempt a total emulation of these console functions of touch actions, graphics display as well as simple keyboard terminal entry onto the front-end computer controlling the AAC. The PC based emulation by mouse and multiple windows under MS-DOS and later, under the Windows 3 environment was realized relatively quickly; the next stage was therefore to do the same on the Unix platform using software based on X-Windows. The communications channel was established using the TCP/IP socket library. This paper reviews this work up to the operational implementation for routine control room usage for both these solutions.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI03  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI04 The Elettra Man-Machine Interface 460
 
  • F. Potepan, M. Mignacco, G. Surace
    Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A., Basovizza, Italy
 
  ELETTRA is a third generation Synchrotron Light Source under construction in Trieste (Italy), with beam energies between 1.5 and 2 GeV. Two networks connect three layers of computers in a fully distributed architecture. An ergonomic and unified approach in the realization of the human interface for the ELETTRA storage ring has led to the adoption of artificial reality criteria for the definition of the system synoptic representation and user interaction. Users can navigate inside a graphic database of the whole system and interactively edit specific virtual control panels to operate on the controlled equipment. UNIX workstations with extended graphic capabilities as operator consoles are used in the implementation of the PSI (Programmable Synoptic Interface), that was developed on top of X11 and the Programmer’s Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System (PHIGS) standards.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI04  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI05 Exploiting the X-Window Environment to Expand the Number, Reach, and Usefulness of Fermilab Accelerator Control Consoles 464
 
  • K. Cahill, J.G. Smedinghoff
    Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois, USA
 
  The Fermilab accelerator operator workstation of choice is now the Digital VAXstation running VMS and X-Window software. This new platform provides an easy to learn programming environment while support routines are expanding in number and power. The X-Window environment is exploited to provide remote consoles to users across long haul networks and to support multiple consoles on a single workstation. The integration of imaging systems, local datalogging, commercial and Physics community’s software, and development facilities on the operator workstation adds functionality to the system. The locally engineered knob/pointer/keyboard interface solves the multiple keyboard and mouse problems of a multi-screen console. This paper will address these issues of Fermilab’s accelerator operator workstations.
Operated by Universities Research Association for the Department of Energy
 
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI05  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI06 A Virtual Control Panel Configuration Tool for the X-Window System 468
 
  • J.O. Hill, L.R. Dalesiopresenter, D.M. Kerstiens
    LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
 
  Funding: Work supported and funded under the Department of Defense, US Army Strategic Defense Command, under the auspices of the Department of Energy.
Computer Graphics Workstations are becoming increasingly popular for use as virtual process control and read back panels. The workstation’s CRT, keyboard, and pointing device are used in concert to produce a display that is in essence a control panel, even if actual switches and gauges are not present. The code behind these displays is most often specific to one display and not reusable for any other display. Recently, programs have been written allowing many of these virtual control panel displays to be configured without writing additional code. This approach allows the initial programming effort to be reapplied to many different display instances with minimal effort. These programs often incorporate many of the features of a graphics editor, allowing a pictorial model of the process under control to be incorporated into the control panel. We have just finished writing a second generation software system of this type for use with the X-Window system and the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS). This paper describes the primary features of our software, the framework of our design, and our observations after initial installation.
 
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI06  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI07 X-Window for Process Control in a Mixed Hardware Environment 471
 
  • M.R. Clausen, K. Rehlich
    DESY, Hamburg, Germany
 
  X-Window is a common standard for display purposes on the current workstations. The possibility to create more than one window on a single screen enables the operators to gain more information about the process. Multiple windows from different control systems using mixed hardware is one of the problems this paper will describe. The experience shows that X-Window is a standard per definition, but not in any case. But it is an excellent tool to separate data-acquisition and display from each other over long distances using different types of hardware and software for communications and display. Our experience with X-Window displays for the cryogenic control system and the vacuum control system at HERA on DEC and SUN hardware will be described.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI07  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI08 An Open Software System Based on X Windows for Process Control and Equipment Monitoring 475
 
  • A. Aimar, E. Carlier, V. Mertenspresenter
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
 
  The construction and application of a configurable open software system for process control and equipment monitoring can speed up and simplify the development and maintenance of equipment specific software as compared to individual solutions. The present paper reports the status of such an approach for the distributed control systems of SPS and LEP beam transfer components, based on X Windows and the OSF/Motif tool kit and applying data modeling and software engineering methods.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI08  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI09 Porting Linac Applieation Programs to a Windowing Environment 479
 
  • J.-M. Nonglaton, U. Raichpresenter
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
 
  We report our experience in porting Linac application programs written for CAMAC controlled hardware consoles to an X·Windows/Motif based workstation environment. Application programs acquire their parameter values from a front end computer (FEC), controlling the acceleration process, via a local area network. The timing for data acquisition and control is determined by the particle source timing. Two server programs on the FEC for repetitive acquisition and command-response mode will be described. The application programs on the workstations access a common parameter access server who establishes the necessary connection to the parameters on the FEC. It displays the parameter’s current values and allows control through Motif interactive synoptics editor and its corresponding driver program allow easy generation of synoptics displays and interaction through command panels.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI09  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI10 A New Workstation Based Man/Machine Interface System for the JT-60 Upgrade 483
 
  • I. Yonekawa, M. Shimono, T. Totsuka, K. Yamagishi
    JAEA/NAKA, Ibaraki-ken, Japan
 
  Development of a new man/machine interface system was stimulated by the requirements of making the JT-60 operator interface more "friendly" on the basis of the past five-year operational experience. Eleven Sun/3 workstations and their supervisory mini-computer HIDIC V90/45 are connected through the standard network; Ethernet. The network is also connected to the existing "ZENKEI" mini-computer system through the shared memory on the HIDIC V90/45 minicomputer. Improved software, such as automatic setting of the discharge conditions, consistency check among the related parameters and easy operation for discharge result data display, offered the "user-friendly" environments. This new man/machine interface system leads to the efficient operation of the JT-60.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI10  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI11 A Flexible Graphic Display System for Accelerator Control 487
 
  • C.O. Pak
    KEK, Ibaraki, Japan
 
  A flexible graphic display system for controlling the KEK Photon Factory storage ring has been developed. A VME computer locally controls the graphic display system and communicates with the host control computer through a RS-232C link. Graphic pictures are prepared in the local system by an interactive operation using either a tablet or a keyboard. The host control computer is free from any load due to graphics processing. In an on-line operation, pictures are displayed and modified by simple command strings from the host computer. A "picture stack" method has been developed for this graphics system. The latest demanded picture always has top priority to be presented on each display monitor. Previous pictures are saved in a stack and can reappear when the current picture has been freed.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI11  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI12 Human-Machine Interface Software Package 490
 
  • D.K. Liu, C.Z. Zhang
    IHEP, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
 
  The Man-Machine Interface software Package (MMISP) is designed to configure the console software of PLS 60 Mev LINAC control system. The control system of PLS 60 Mev LINAC ia a distributed control system which includes the main computer (Intel 310) four local station, and two sets of industrial level console computer. The MMISP provides the operator with the display page editor, various I/0 configuration such as digital signals In/Out, analog signal In/Out, waveform TV graphic display, and interactive with operator through graphic picture display, voice explanation, and touch panel. This paper describes its function and application.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI12  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI13 Correlation Plot Facility in the SLC Control System 493
 
  • L. Hendrickson, S. Clark, N. Phinney, L. Sanchez-Chopitea
    SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
 
  Funding: Work supported by Department of Energy contract DE-AC03-76SF00515.
The Correlation Plot facility is a powerful interactive tool for data acquisition and analysis throughout the SLC. This generalized interface allows the user to perform a range of operations or machine physics experiments without the need for any specialized analysis software. The user may step one or more independent parameters, such as magnet or feedback setpoints, while measuring or calculating up to 160 other parameters. Measured variables include all analog signals available to the control system, as well as calculated parameters such as beam size, luminosity, or emittance. Various fitting algorithms and display options are provided. A software-callable interface has been provided so that a host of applications can call this package for analysis and display. Such applications regularly phase klystrons, measure emittance and dispersion, minimize beam size, and maintain beam collisions at the interact ion point.
 
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI13  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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S13MMI14 Iconic Representation of Particle Beams Using Personal Computers 496
 
  • S. Dasgupta, C. Mallik, D. Sarkar
    VECC, Kolkata, India
 
  The idea of representing the character of a charged particle beam by means of its emittance ellipses, is essentially a mathematical one. For quick understanding of the beam character in a more user-friendly way, unit beam cells with particles having a uniform nature, have been pictured by suitably shaped 3-D solids. The X and Y direction momenta at particular cell areas of the particle beam combine together to give a proportionate orientation to the solid in the pseudo 3-D world of the graphic screen, creating a physical picture of the particle beam. This is expected to facilitate the comprehension of total characteristics of a beam in cases of online control of transport lines and their designs, when interfaced with various ray-tracing programs. The implementation is done in an IBM-PC environment.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS1991-S13MMI14  
About • Received ※ 11 November 1991 — Accepted ※ 20 November 1991 — Issued ※ 04 December 1992  
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