© EUROMICRO EUROMICRO Journal 6 (1980) 2-3

Looking into the 80'es

The turn of the year is an appropriate time for a status, the time to recal l recent achievements and the thime to name what is l e f t behind. Such a status provides a useful aid when t ry ing to look ahead and to guess what is behind the hor i - zon of tomorrow. Somehow this perspective is am- p l i f i e d by the turning of a decade, and I cannot help thinking back to 1970. By that time I be- l ieve few of us rea l l y imagined the impact of words l i ke micro-processor or micro-computer, but at the same time the concept of micro-pro- gramming seemed well established. I remember one of my collegues showing me a project ion of cost of computers as a function of years (hardware, what else~) where the price reached zero in 1974 - i t did seem absurd then, but looking back, i t was quite a good approximation. In many ways, the expectations for this decade were surpassed by the technological achievements of the semi- conductor industry. From this point of view the micro-computer is rea l l y a new achievement, and the impact of the micro-processor w i l l deeply a f fec t our social l i f e . I wonder i f any of us w i l l have enough imagination and fantasy to rea l l y believe our own predict ions.

In order to look into the near future, we shall return to the EUROMICRO SYMPOSIUM 1979 in Gothen- burg. As you are probably fami l i a r with the pro- ceedings of the sc ien t i f i c papers, we have de- voted this issue of the journal to the documen- tat ion of some of the other events of the Sympo- sium. The topics covered are the Keynote speeches and the Industr ia l papers. The indust r ia l pro- gramme showed several aspects of micro-computer use l i ke : new semiconductor chips, micro-comput- er development tools, software considerations of domestic appliances, f l e x i b l e automation of pro- duction equipment, and improvements to ex is t ing communication networks. The complete indust r ia l programme is reprinted below.

The Keynote speakers have kindly provided manu- scripts of the i r presentations and rather than having my in te rp re ta t ion , I suggest you review the i r contr ibut ions yoursel f to gain a better understanding of some of the events to come.

In the indust r ia l appl icat ion of micro-computers, several trends are v is ib le . Although the d isc i - p l ine is quite new, we see established technolo- gies being challenged by micro-computer solu- t ions. This trend becomes noticeable in the cases of well established products, the primary func- t ions of which can not be very much improved by micro-processors. A micro-processor solut ion is

here preferred due to user convenience, service- a b i l i t y , product r e l i a b i l i t y , and energy conser- vat ion, which are only some of the advantages offered by micro-processor solut ions. We see that emphasis has changed from hardware to software and test ing. We see multi-micro-processors with many d i f fe ren t levels of processor communication, e i ther closely coupled with common memory or in networks with dedicated communication control- lers. We see new generations of micro-processors with order of magnitude performance improvements. We see new generations of development systems for mult i user, mul t ip le target micro-processor ap- p l i ca t ions , involving the use of higher level languages.

I take this opportunity of thanking the keynote speakers and the indust r ia l programme speakers for the i r contr ibut ion to the EUROMICRO SEMINAR 1979 and hope the EUROMICRO JOURNAL may continue to serve as one of your sources of information on micro-processors in the 1980'es.

John M¢Igaard

EUROMICRO INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME 1979

MC68000 THE SYSTEM ISTHE SOLUTION. Motorola AB Sweden, BjUrn Mikkelsen, Larsjohan Larsson. Motorola's advanced computing system provides the systems user with a range of system products, support products and software. MC68000 creates opportuni t ies where previously only an expensive minicomputer could provide the required perfor- mance.

AN INDUSTRIAL STATISTICAL APPROACH TO SOLUTION OF MIDDLE-EAST TELEX NETWORK PROBLEMS. Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Eng. M. Nagi Elyousfi. The paper presents the s ta t i s t i cs concerning the occurrence of defects in Egyptian Telex Networks. I t hands over a guide to solut ion of those prob- lems by micro-electronics and micro-processing.

AN INDUSTRIAL REALIZATION FOR AUTOMATIC REMOVAL OF FALSE REVERSALS IN TELEX NETWORKS. Military Technical College, Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Eng. M. Moustafa Rateb. The paper hands over the analysis of a real ized system for automatic removal of false reversals in te lex networks. I t shows how the SSI-MSI real ized system could be improved to be a micro- processor rea l i za t ion .

J. M~Igaard 3

MODEST, A NOVEL MICROCOMPUTER DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM FOR INDUSTRIAL MICROCOMPUTER SYSTEMS. N.V. Phi- lips' Gloeilampenfabrieken - Elcoma Division, the Netherlands. B.T.J. Bruinshorst, A.H.J. Sc~- torj~. Mnemonics can be typed in character by character on a CRT keyboard. MODEST assembles and loads object code in the user system RAM. Af ter devel- opment, the on-board EPROM programmer can be used to store the program.

THE SIGNETICS 2653 POLYNOMIAL GENERATOR AND CHECKER. N.V. Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken - Elcoma Division, the Netherlands. M. Malotaux. The Signetics 2653 PGC generates and checks VRC and BCC or CRC on para l le l data passing over a computer databus to or from e.g. communication c i r c u i t s . Also i t can detect specif ied charac- ters or DLE sequences. So i t re l ieves the CPU from a l l character checking and detecting even in Bisync transparent mode.

IMP 2000, AN INDUSTRIAL MICROPROCESSOR FOR IN- JECTION MOULDING MACHINERY. Buhl Automatic, Den- mark. Ketil Clausen, K. Vikja~r Andersen. Hardware and software pr inc ip les for an SPS (Software Programmable System) applied to in jec- t ion moulding contro l . A multiprocessor based on 8015 is presented with emphasis on I /0 systems for indus t r ia l environments.

DEVELOPMENT TOOLS FOR NEW MICROPROCESSORS. Moto- rola AB Sweden. Larsjohan Larsson. Motorola's 16 b i t microprocessor w i l l be suppor- ted by a new generation of development tools. Development Systems for the 68000 are reviewed with descr ipt ion of the key software products and a summary of future hardware and software development tools.

A SOFTWARE STRUCTURE FOR APPLIANCE CONTROL. Zel- tron, Zanussi, Italy. U. de Monte, P. Fiorini, P. Rotoloni, G. Scir¢. The control of electrodomestic appliance is dis- cussed in terms of three classes of system ap- proach which are required, in the same machine, in order to perform e f f i c i e n t l y the funct ions of user in te rac t ion , execution of washing cycles and overal l supervision.

A SMALL OPERATING SYSTEM FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF SEQUENTIAL PROCESSES IN A ROM-BASED MICROPROCES- SOR SYSTEM. Zeltron, Zanussi, Italy. Edoardo Sada. A system, characterized by some unconventional features, is described. Special a t tent ion is given to operator in ter fac ing ( b u i l t - i n key- board), i n i t i a l i z a t i o n , delay implementation, synchronization problems, ease and f l e x i b i l i t y of use and s t ructura l s imp l i c i t y .

HIGHER LEVEL LANGUAGES - WRITE IT ONCE, RUN IT ON ANY MICROPROCESSOR. The Boston Systems Offic~ Inc., USA. Michael Rooney. Most microprocessor programs today are, out of choice or necessity, wr i t ten in assembly lan- guage. I t is now becoming possible to wr i te a program once in a higher level language and then run i t on any microprocessor. This is accom- plished via a fami ly of source language compat-

ib le compilers for microprocessors. I t is also possible to wr i te port ions of programs in d i f - ferent languages, such as Pascal, Fortran and Assembler and l i nk them together for execution.

LOGIC CONTROL AND DRIVING OF DIGITAL STEPPING MOTORS. Sigma Instruments, Inc., USA. Thomas E. Belling. Accelerat ion, decelerat ion, phase decoding and power drives for d i g i t a l stepping motors have been discussed.

John M~l~aard graduated in 1969 from the Tech- nical University of Denmark as an electrical engineer, M. Sc.E.E. His special studies included Digital Computers, Com- munication Theory, Con- trol Theory, and Indus- trial Electronics. After one year of mili- tary service, he joined ELEKTRONIKCENTRALEN (Danish Research Centre for Applied Electronics) where he is now head of

the Instrumentation and Control Section in the department of Circuits and Systems Engineering. He has designed several instruments, ranging from a Digital Low Frequency Sinewave Generator/ Phasemeter to an Oscillator Noise Analyser for microwave frequencies (12 GHz). He has been ac- tive on space projects designing Power Condi- tioning Units, Attitude and Orbit Control Units, as well as Test Equipment. Recently, System Lev- el Test Equipment has been designed for the Pho- ton Detector Assembly of the SPACE TELESCOPE. He has also designed a micro-computer development system and carried out several projects using micro-computers. He is currently miniaturizing an implantable micro-computer system for control of Insulin Infusion. JohnM~lgaard joined Euromicro in 1974 and has been a member of the Board of Directors since 1976. As you can see from the picture, he wears a rel- atively wild beard, indicating his viking de- scent, but he only wears shorts in the summer- time.