Slashdot Mirror

To be honest, if you know what you're doing with computers, there's no reason to stick with Windows on your desktop in a Windows environment.

No reason? I'll give you a few that apply in my office:

Rockwell Software

Wonderware

GE Fanuc

PI

AutoCAD

SolidWorks

If we can't use those tools, we go out of business. Plain and simple.

Moderators, please consider such things before moderating blanket statements like the parent up to +5. There are a lot of workstations out there that aren't just Word/Excel/Access/Outlook/IE boxes. When you start using dedicated software packages like the stuff I've described above, you're using Windows, and you don't have a choice (PI being a partial exception, you can get the server for Unix but many client tools are Windows-only). Does that suck? Yeah, kinda. But that's the reality, and wishing it were different doesn't change it.

I work for a small engineering firm and we can't deploy SP2 yet either. There are a number of Rockwell Software products that are known to break under SP2 due to the new firewall plus a number of DCOM changes, and we use those products extensively; I sent an email to everybody today reminding them not to install SP2 until Rockwell updates their applications. Any electrical or controls engineer should already be aware of this but take a gander here anyway to get the idea.

OK, before everybody gets carried away with what SCADA systems are based on, let me point out - SCADA stands for "Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition". No single company makes SCADA any more than any single company makes any other type of application software.

SCADA systems exist that will run on QNX, Linux (See VSystem), Windows NT/2000, DOS (Yes, DOS - i.e. FactoryLink with DesqView) as well as other older platforms like VAX/VMS and PDP-11.

So, SCADA systems do not necessarily rely on OPC or DCOM - some do, some don't. Some still use DDE (trust me, not the most reliable means of communication).

Industry uses all sorts of SCADA systems, from several vendors - Rockwell Software makes RSView, Wonderware makes InTouch, Siemens makes WinCC, you get the picture. The GE package involved in the systems at First Energy is only one example of SCADA, in the same way that EMACS is only one example of a text editor.

Sorry for the rant, but IAAAE (I am an automation engineer).

hey kids, want to learn about the exciting world of automation? Here's a few links! Offtopic? Who cares!?

Omron
GE Industrial Systems or GE Fanuc
Rockwell Automation
Phoenix Contact
ABB
Nachi
Wieland

In case you're wondering, this is what I do for a living... And right now I'm very bored... Time to go home soon. Soon... soon...

I work at a place that is open 24 hours a day, I get full benefits (medical, dental, life insurance, and more), and make about $12 an hour plus profit sharing. And, the more profitible locations are ALWAYS looking for computer savy people.

My job duties include working with multiple platforms (Win, Mac, Solaris), doing all kinds of geeky stuff as a computer service specialist.

Plus, most importantly, you meet anyone who is anyone in the local companies ... I am on a first name basis with most of the top brass at a huge biotech company, several aerospace companies, a really cool, really geeky engineering department in the music industry, and just about anywhere else worth working in my area.

I get job offers all of the time, but am holding off until I finish school.

A couple of quick links from a google search:
A Byte Magazine article from 1996.
An article that was published in Scientific American.
The latter link says that storing "trillions of bytes" in the size of a sugar cube seems possible.
It is a "3d type storage"- with layers of data that can be read by varying the angle at which a laser is used to read it. (See the first article)

Rockwell (best known for building the space shuttle) also is developing high end CMOS imaging sensors. For some interesting technical details, check out
Rockwell Science Center