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Integrated Continuous-System Modeling and Simulation Environments
Published in Derek A. Linkens, CAD for Control Systems, 2020
Unfortunately, the above described system is currently vaporware. There exists a graphical frontend for Dymola, called LICS [16], but LICS was coded 10 years ago, at a time when neither the computer hardware nor the operating software were ripe to support such a development. LICS was developed on a VAX/11-780. It was controlled by a mouse with a home-built interface! While LICS was running, all other log-ins to the VAX were disabled. LICS was later ported over to a Silicon Graphics IRIS Workstation, and its name was changed to HIBLIZ [18]. However, the software was ported with minimal changes, and also the new version is heavily hardware-dependent. LICS (and HIBLIZ) offer stylized block diagrams (without icon editor) and translate into Dymola. Hierarchical decomposition is supported by means of a zoom/pan feature rather than the system entity structure approach that has been advocated in this chapter. A complete reimplementation of this software is needed. Using X and Motif, this should be a much simpler task than the development of the original system.
Computer-Aided Control System Design: Techniques and Tools
Published in Naim A. Kheir, Systems Modeling and Computer Simulation, 2018
François E. Cellier, C. Magnus Rimvall
In the fall of 1980, Aström and Golub undertook the commendable effort to bring recognized numeric analysts and control experts together in the first conference on numeric techniques in control ever held. On this occasion, we met with Moler, who demonstrated his newly released MATLAB software. It took us only minutes to realize the true value of this instrument for our task. When we returned to Zurich, we implemented MATLAB first on a PDP 11/60, and a short while later on the freshly acquired VAX 11/ 780. Within 1 year, MATLAB became the single most often used program on that machine (which belonged to the department of electrical engineering). Students were able to learn the use of this tool within half an hour, and suddenly, researchers also became interested in our “gadgets.” MATLAB was fully command driven.
Modeling
Published in William C. Walton, Principles of GROUNDWATER ENGINEERING, 2020
FORTRAN numerical model mainframe or minicomputer groundwater flow and mass transport programs which are well documented, well tested, available at moderate cost, and in the public domain include MODFLOW, MOC, MOCNRC, SUTRA, MOCDENSE, USGS-2D-FLOW, HST3D, PLASM, and RANDOM WALK. These programs are distributed by the International Ground Water Modeling Center. The FORTRAN codes are implemented on a DEC VAX 11/780. Copies of the software are provided on a magnetic tape in user-specified formats. Most of these programs are supported by sets of pre- and post-processor programs which prepare input files, display both input and output results, and create data files for graphics software.
Personal reflections on 50 years of scientific computing: 1967–2017
Published in International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, 2020
The first VAX 11/780 minicomputer at VPI&SU went to the Department of Geology to run canned software, the next one to Computer Science, and the third one to the Spatial Data Analysis Laboratory. The latter two ran DECnet between them for the first computer network (1980) at VPI&SU. Getting approval from the university to run this DECnet cable through the campus steam tunnels was an eye-opening experience in how entrenched bureaucracies respond to new technology. Suddenly VAXes and other minicomputers were sprouting like weeds, and the central campus computing centre saw an elegant solution to their budget crisis: computing would henceforth be ‘ decentralised’ with departments, colleges, and laboratories running their own minicomputers, and the centre supporting only administrative computing and one token VAX 11/780. Concurrent with this was the adoption of a ‘personal computer requirement’ for computer science and engineering incoming freshmen, essentially forcing them to provide their own computing resources (VPI&SU was the first public university to have such a requirement).
A computational journey in the true north
Published in International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, 2020
When I began my career I had to apply for a special research grant in order to be able to purchase a video display terminal that would connect to the departmental computer a DEC VAX 11/780 (a few doors down from my office). However, already in 1981, thanks to a dial-up modem and the BITNET computer network, I was able to connect from home several kilometres away. This allowed one to access one's files, run programs, and use email. Around the same time, personal computers made their appearance and the face of computing began to change very quickly. In the late 1970s and early 1980s I served as a consultant to a Canadian effort called Telidon (a name which combines two Greek words to mean ‘knowing at a distance’) [1]. This pioneering communications medium was a precursor to the Internet, merging the capabilities of the television, telephone, and computer technologies in order to provide access to information (text, still images, and video) on demand. Unfortunately, the service did not succeed in securing rapid and widespread adoption, and essential funding from the government was cut in 1985. Nonetheless, Telidon made a significant contribution to information technology in Canada, and provided a vision of the future of information exchange. The World Wide Web (WWW) was launched in 1989, and soon thereafter the first search engine for the WWW was developed by three McGill researchers in 1990. The Canadian government was one of the first to join the Internet when in 1995 it inaugurated http://canada.gc.ca/.