Old Screens

Old ASCII Screens

the Early Development...

1992 August (The very first screen)
Showing the alternate filaments coming on, but the PRIMARY transmitter still operating and connected to the antenna.

"A man must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere."
-Charles F. Kettering

The very first screens were seen in august of 1992. They were not the greatest: the screens were cluttered and confusing. But they worked; and the control system was delivered on time.

Depicted are two transmitters: a primary on the right and an alternate on the left. Only one transmitter could be connected to the antenna at a time. The connection is shown by two confusing blue slanted lines.

Also, characterist of the time, was a list of parameters in a column fashion as seen on the right hand side. The analog values were not placed amongst the graphics. Other control systems that were to come out in 1995 and 1996 used this simplistic approach of "lists".

When the system officially started controling Golden Empire broadcast facilities, the display screens were not pretty. But still, I am lucky to have this picture.

1993 SCREEN

It should be pointed out that the early screens were in ASCII (Characters) as used in Dos. Windows, at that time, was using EGA graphics, which was very pretty. But what I clearly did was use simple extended characters to resemble graphics. I do not know if I was the first to do this.

But what I was first to do was to integrate parameters and graphics. I eliminated the parameter list on the right and distributed parameters on several different screens: Screens that were dedicated to a specific control area.

I kept the concept of two feedback parameters per real parameter: a mixture of digital (on-off) sensors and analog (readings).

animation
AC transfer module screen

Animation was developed and employed right in the beginning (Aug of 1992). There are animated arrows coming from PGE and going to a transfer switch. Actually there are two transfer switches: one 208vac and one 480vac. Animation was done in ASCII characters which was faster than graphics.

1994 Sound Module
Rack pannel mount

Sound and speech was added in 1994. The speech was not totally independent. A computer was necessary for the syllabe arrangements and also the word arrangement in the sentences. At this time, all computers still ran under DOS.

1993 Security screen
Showing security defeated and/because Engineer present.

Management primarily wanted good transmitter controls. But an added benefit was that the control system could easily be expanded to security also. This was done in early 1993.

Light sensors were installed in all rooms and all buildings.
Sensors were installed on all doors.
Motion detectors were installed.
All entries were recorded on paper, and entries were later tied into speech with speakers withen buildings and outside grounds.

1993 or 1994?
Transmitter Control Screen

Operators will remember this old screen...
In the early days, commands were selected on separate screens other than the viewing screen of the controled devices. This was not a good arrangement. The only thing on this screen is a list of control functions. Going back and forth between screens was a hasle.

There is again that graphical look. This time of ASCII "bricks" with lists floating above. As the curser hovered above each entry; a window appeared with text explaining what that command did. I tried to use graphics with this screen, but in 1994 a 33MHz machine was far too slow: ASCII characters were much faster, with a crisp responsive feel. I was to stay with DOS until computers would get faster.

1995 Transmitter Screen

As the years past by, there were slight improvements.
You can better see the graphical look in the blue "cylinders".

You can see the remote time under the local time in the far right upper corner. Although timestamping at the sensor level did not come into being until my second control system, which I named the Autonomous System. (In 1995 the remote time was the time that the sensor information came in at the remote computer.)

The top line is an advisory line. And it reads the same on all screens. In this case, there has been a change in the stack temperature (One of the transmitter temperatures). I believe it was 3% different, and it is neither good or bad. (It turned out not to be usefull.) There are eight catagories of change for each parameter: one neutral and three low, and one neutral and three high. They are all explained (as far as degree) on the top line and also on the log. My new system is not as elaborate as this old system in the number of out of tolerance catagories. My new system has only four catagories: two warnings, and two out of tolerance. However these catagories are established at the sensor-microprocessor level. After a computer is reached, and after an analog value is given, the computer can assign an unlimited number of catagories, concerning degree.

Caution...

Here is a neat ASCII screen that operators are familiar with. This screen was also invented in 1992. But I invented it too fast: originally it had 6 fingers. I was demonstrating the program one day, and an operator asked a real stupid question: "Is that supposed to be a hand?" Before I could turn around at the screen, everybody together said that it had too many fingers. Oh well, I never said that I was an artist.

The program reserved space for up to two reasons for every objection. The complexity of "objections" are enormous, and criteria can not be easily established, except for the simplest of specifically iterated examples. Through the years I never got beyond this dynamic problem.

RULERBOW