In Control

I have just added a Google search box to the website. Several people have asked for this. I welcome feedback on your experiences with it. It searches the SPLat website only.

I am a huge fan of Skype, the Internet telephony application that allows free computer to computer phone calls. I use regular computer to computer Skype, also the SkypeOut service. SkypeOut lets me make calls from my home base in Australia to customers' regular phones in the US for 2 cents/minute.

But "cheap" is not the main thing about Skype, as far as I am concerned.

I came across an interesting article in PC World describing Vista as the best Windows ever, then setting out a whole heap of reasons for not buying - yet. You can read the article by Mike Elgan here.

Mike makes some good points. But here's another set of reasons for not jumping into Vista too soon: There are still questions about Vista's support for older applications. This includes SPLat/PC, which is a 16-bit application. We have bought a copy of 32-bit Vista, and will be testing as soon as we can find time, but there have been quite solid reports that 64-bit versions of Vista definitely will not run 16-bit applications.

Are you aware of our web page that compares SPLat's proprietary language with several other languages used for controls programming? I set that page up some time ago to show the same controller program written in several languages. I created a simple SPLat program that does 3 things concurrently using multitasking. A friend wrote me the equivalent in Dynamic C. I wrote the equivalent in Ladder (a horrid experience!).

We have now completed a redesign of the MS12, renaming it MS120, and we are shipping the new product. The MS120 has all the features of its predecessor, but with the following enhancements:

• Approximately twice as fast;
  
• 24K of program memory versus 6K;
  
• Support for ModBus slave RTU;
  
• RoHS compliant (lead-free construction);
  
• Improved EMI performance
  

I just stumbled on a very powerful tool for web developers. FireBug is an add-on that integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. If you make web pages, this is definitely a tool you should check out. It is very impressive.

A customer in North Carolina just made me aware of a new kind of battery. Thanks, Til.

Now, if we in Australia could solve our water problems we might also solve our energy problems. I wish! Here it is, on YouTube.

Back in 1998 we designed the first SPLat with a built in operator interface (OI, HMI). Little did we realize at the time how successful the product would be, how many competitors would emulate the concept of a controller with on board OI and user legendable graphics overlay and how may direct successors it would have.

The MMi product has been designed in to a large number of OEM products world-wide, from industrial laminators to pump controllers.

Now there is a new, improved family member.

As we get access to faster microcontroller chips, we are able to incorporate new features. The latest feature is a medium speed counter implemented in firmware.

The "OnBoard Counter type B" (OBCB) is able to count at up to 1.8kHz on up to 8 inputs simultaneously. It accumulates counts in a 16-bit counter per channel. A novel timebase system lets you make frequency measurements.

This feature is in addition to the hardware based high speed counter, which goes to up to 100kHz (depending on the product), and the quadrature counter, plus of course all the ways you can count in SPLatWare.