Once upon a time, year 1978 a big decision was made by the engineers constructing a big steel plant in southwest of germany. What machine shall control all the stuff ? A new system was coming up named SOLAR by the company SEMS. Bus structured, realtimeable, multiuser, multiprocessing, small and fast operating system, hardware-adapters for all possible electrical signals, what do they need else ?
So, in 1980 two years later the biggest SEMS system ever build was growing up in the computer rooms of the new steel plant. With help from ARBED in Luxembourg installation and programming was made in shortest time. In just one year, the hole system was running. Because of the big success, future extensions were made with the same technology. Here is the complete list of system components, only in the main plant, three years later:

1987 all systems work without any serious problems. Two SEMS technicians take care day and night since installation.

To replace the SEMS systems with DEC Mikrovaxes and SPS5 of SIEMENS was a first step done by the steel plant owners to participate of the advantages of the market during the last 20 years. At last they got a lot of unexpected difficulties because of the decentralized structure with independant companys, software updates, software releases, license fees, responsibility problems when errors come up, and so on.

But then, the technicians around Mr. Walter, former of SEMS in germany, had a great idea. Together with a software company RST near munich, they offered a solution for all needs.

The VMEbus

Using VMEbus solves every problem. Because of the bus structure, slightly to SOLAR, all components can be placed from the front. The engineering group of  IAW developed an interface card which is plugged into the back of the VME rack, so it is possible to use the DIL/DOL connectors again. That means no changes in the existing process cabling of the 800 I/O signals was necessary. Can You imagine the great advantage. With this interface we are able to emulate nearly every existing old connector system from old machines whatever manufacturer it is.

Two years later the first three SEMS systems were replaced by VMEbus wih our interface cards. Together with RST, the visualisation and databases were realized on the VMEbus system also. With our new partners Systemforschung und Woehrle we offer the best from all to satisfy Your needs. The databases and visualisation is now running on PCs, controling, steering, and I/Os are running on fast VMEBus systems.