Stockholm University B.A.(D-)Essay Feb 1999

Economic History

Karl Erik Björkman

DRIVING FORCES IN THE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT OF CONTROL

Power Control and Control Power

LIST OF CONTENTS

SUMMARY

1. OUTLINE OF THE ESSAY

2. OBJECTIVE

3. METHODS AND INFORMATION SOURCES

4. CONTROL

5. LITERATURE REVIEW

6. HISTORY REVIEW

6.1 Some important discoveries and inventions

6.2 Communication History

6.3 Computer History

6.4 Operating Systems and Programming tools

6.5 Input and Output Interfacing

7. DEVELOPMENT - an interactive process

7.1 Introduction

7.2 ASEA/ABB - Control

7.3 STORA - Power Control

7.4 Cooperation - Summary

8. PROSPECTS

8.1 The range of control

8.2 The information integration

8.3 Deregulation and competition

CONCLUSION

APPENICES

Appendix 1 Communication History

Appendix 2 Communication and Computer History

Appendix 3 Computer History

Appendix 4 Operating Systems and Programming tools

REFERENCE LIST

SUMMARY

The range of control is wide. Control is one of the three dimensions Control, Matter and Energy used by Beniger. Control is mind, intention and directives, matter is material, equipment and systems and energy is the necessary input for all activity. This study is limited to power control but it gives an outlook on the means and targets of control and also the control range and strength. Control without a target is meaningless and targets can not be reached without control.

The essay is a review of the technical development in a very long perspective. It does not go into technical details as it is presented as an essay within Economic History. Therefore the intention has been to show the incentives for development. A hypothesis can be that the demand side has initiated questions and put forward requests of performance to the suppliers who have responded under competition with new generations of equipment. We may then conclude a demand initiation process and a supply competition driven development.

Development rests on a profound knowledge in general and in specific fields as a base within the manufacturing company for taking decisions to develop new systems or new generations of equipment. Without this base it would not be possible to wait with the development until a suitable order can be seen. It would give too long delivery time. The supplier must be able to put together the necessary development resources to act at short notice to achieve specified targets. In a large company this can be with internal resources maybe complemented by externally available specialists. In a small company this would not be possible. A network of competent people should exist early in a project. Also big companies may go outside for parts of the development, when internal resources are concentrated on the core of the project. Small companies have to form networks or joint ventures for development. A competent management is required to organize and administrate a development project.

Explicit decisions to take big development steps are not easily available. Business security reasons prevent publishing at an early stage. Decisions are often hidden in the tendering process, where decisions may be taken at executive level . The board may have been informed at an early stage of the situation and may have given an approval to go ahead when the project is risky or means a considerable investment with long reaching consequences. My impression is that decisions are in reality taken in informal discussions with little documentation at that stage. At the board level the motives may not be seen at all except in general words. Development can be seen historically as rational, but the way, discussions leading to the decision, alternatives, doubts and risks may not be possible to retrieve. It lies in the heads of those engaged. What we see is also mainly the success stories, not all trial and error projects that have failed.

In a world of competition it is essential to allow mistakes and provide for rapid correction and it is also essential to allow and promote informal contacts and even organized meetings between talented engineers and innovators in general to stimulate cross-fertilization between different fields of knowledge. In this way the big companies have the advantage of arranging this within its own walls. Small companies have to stimulate external contacts. Receptive consultants working with different companies can transfer ideas that in a receptive organization can become very useful. Knowledge is magnified and reflected when used properly.

1. OUTLINE OF THE ESSAY

The essay will show incentives for development. First however a literature review on the subject control will be given to lead the reader into the theoretical aspects. This gives a background for thinking in terms of development and incentives.

Then the history of communication will be addressed to show the long range of development that has lead up to the situation of today. This will show how development goes along many parallel lines in different fields of human activity. Innovations within one field stimulate innovations in other fields. This part of the essay has been made general and not selective for control only. Most of the data are given in appendices not to burden the reader too much too early in the essay. The appendices can be scanned rapidly just to give an idea of the history.

Computers and programming tools have been described somewhat more specific the closer we come the technology of today. Input and output interfaces to the processing parts are important in control but can be considered only as technical development along with computer development. Concentration should be on the main processing and communication.

Then follows the practical case study of ASEA and Stora Kopparberg as an example of the interplay between a supplier of industrial equipment and an investor in process control to improve the result of an industrial process. Asea has given access to business specific information and so has Stora too. As I have been employed at different periods with both ASEA now ABB and Stora Kopparberg now Stora-Enso i have also my own memories of development and incentives. This chapter is the main part of the essay.

2. OBJECTIVE

The aim of the study is to try to find the forces to develop methods and means to achieve ever better control and use of investments in generation, transmission and supply of electricity.

The manufacturers of power components and control systems are competing with each other. The power industry is buying system components for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to intermediate or end consumers.

Is development thoroughly planned or is it ad hoc dependant on lost orders due to non-competitive offers or are orders taken to give a rapid catch-up with competitors within a short period of time using the latest available components. Is it a push from the manufacturer or is it a pull from the user that is most important.

A study of the history of development that has had a major impact on the development of control will give the long perspective and show links in the development web. In this context also the targets of control at different levels have to be addressed. Although control here is considered as the minor part that controls the large system components there is in reality no exact dividing line between the control and the main items. More and more control is built into the major components for hardware control, supervision and self-correction. Thus a hierarchy of control is developed which has to be integrated up to highest levels. This includes economy and business operation and information within the organization.

Man’s position in the system is not to forget. No control however sophisticated can run without the higher control that man in a wider sense has to be responsible for. What serves the production best and how should the operator be supported. Who is responsible in the chain of events that precedes the last input from the operator’s action. Is there some hindrance in certain directions. Where are the incentives for individuals, corporations, human networks, management and society as a whole to stimulate progress in the short and long run. What is progress in the long run. How does competition from other areas on our globe influence our behavior. Swedish products contain an increasing share of engineering knowledge and development work built in or embedded in the physical deliveries of equipment and in complete system deliveries. Exports require industry and industry requires engineers.

3. METHODS AND INFORMATION SOURCES

My experience in engineering electricity is extensive and also includes control. My knowledge in the field will guide my search for more information in different sources. I have also ASEA brochures like Information YL 751-302 by YFB in August 1970 but those are almost purely technical and have not been used. Some papers written by myself have supported my memory. So has also an article published in Elteknik on the control system in Stora Kopparberg in 1970.

Having been employed by ABB and STORA I have had the advantage of getting internal company information to illustrate development aspects. It has given substance to my own recollection plus more and updated information. The information presented has been approved for this publication.

It might be considered that protocols from board meetings could give valuable information, but generally inventions and innovations can not be ordered or planned. The board’s responsibility is to give support to research and development and favor an organization within which development is given the best stimuli. No search for board protocols has been made.

Tradition and habit may be a hindrance to development or to use of new inventions. It may take time before an invention becomes an innovation that takes-off rapidly making previously used technique obsolete. It is interesting to find embryos to present day items a long time back. We tend to see development today as very rapid and so it is but everything has not been invented in the last 50 or one hundred years. The history shows long delays from initial discoveries to practical and general use.

Internet is a good source for historic data of quantity kind and has been found useful for the history time-lines. The reliability is not very important in this essay as the purpose is mainly to show that development rests on previous development and is not something that is a new phenomenon. No thorough checks have been made as the information is used to give a general idea of past discoveries and inventions.

Literature and information is generally affluent. Selective search is necessary. Almost any idea can find support from somebody and maybe from many sources and may still be wrong, especially if it has been copied from an unproven original source. Even if the original source gave a true picture it may have been misinterpreted. The literature studies have given a background of theories and the status of research.

Literature has been selected after search in different data bases in libraries and on internet.

Some books included in special literature courses have also been useful.

Erik Dahmén in his Development Blocks and Industrial Transformation has found development where pieces earlier have been missing or not requested and becoming available have given a step forward. My definition of development is finding solutions to a problem that somebody becomes aware of. The person who sees the problem may be different from the person or group of persons that solve the problem. Sometimes it is the same person in the two roles. Development is going on in a free society at many levels and places. Who was first is often difficult to find out. Speed of communication and exchange of items and ideas are factors that today are essential for development and specialization. That is a reason why we experience a rapid technical development. And in some fields the development has really been fast such as computing, communication and control.

Discussions and conclusions are my responsibility. I have however also got the acknowledgement of my views from people I have discussed different aspects with.

I may mention Folke Dahlfors ABB and Harry Frank ABB and Jan Lövgren Stora. I have also had discussions with Erik Dahmén and Gunnar Eliasson at an earlier stage of this essay.

Definitions as used in this essay:

Communication: Exchange of data and information

Computer: Equipment that handles input data according to a separate program.

Control: Data collection, assessment, decision taking and supervision aiming at certain targets

Data: Information pieces to be treated for process control or compiled and filtered to information

Information: Data presented in a form that is useful for human assessment

System: A set of equipment and programs that can be operated for a certain purpose

4. CONTROL

Jan Erik Ryman, 1962, (later Managing Director of Stockholm Energy) after a visit to the U.S.A. wrote about the aim with automation, (translation from Swedish):

The intention with the increased automation in operation of steam power plants in the U.S.A. has been to increase the safety in operation. Another, but less important aim has been to reduce the staffing requirement. Up to 1960 it was considered good to have 0.2 to 0.3 man per MW. With the ongoing automation process the goal is 0.2 to 0.1 man/MW for plants 50-200MW and 0.08 or less for larger plants.

The main targets are:

• Efficient control of the production process
• Reduced probability of severe operation stops
• Increased efficiency e.g. specific fuel cost
• Staff reduction

He managed to pinpoint the main target of automation and control . Staff reduction is not a target by itself but is often an effect of the main target to improve productivity and total result. It also is the easiest visible and calculated part of the effect although normally only a small fraction of the benefits.

Before the transistor introduction in 1947 mechanical and electromechanical protection and control components were commonly used in process control. Vacuum tubes with triodes and pentodes were used in radio, radar and TV equipment and computers had also been built with electron tubes where electrones are emitted from a heated up cathode. The Cathode Ray Tube, CRT, is still in use in TV and Personal Computer screens. Electricity as the most versatile energy form had been in use for many decades and electricity was available in almost every house in the western industrial world. In factories electric motors could be used for different needs and could be easily controlled. Earlier machines had to be arranged in such a way that driving belts could be used for direct drive from a water wheel or a steam engine.

With electricity the frequency was kept constant at 50 or 60Hz. Hydropower stations could generate electricity at this common frequency stabilized by one big or a few big stations while most other stations could be operated as run of river plants, working on a constant upper surface level or according to programs of water tapping. Often staff was required at the power plants to adjust the water flow as ordered by phone from some main station or control center.

With the transistor more and more complex control systems could be arranged within limited volumes and costs. The functional density of controls has increased according to Moore´s law which says that the functional density doubles every fixed period of time. At the beginning of the transistor era it was 12months and is 50 years later somewhat higher or about 18 months. No saturation is yet in sight.

5. LITERATURE - control and development

Gunnar Eliasson, 1996, in his book Firm Objectives, Controls and Organization, the use of information and the transfer of knowledge within the Firm, states that Machines and labor hours have no economic value without a dominant competence to guide and control their allocation and end use (p.99). Further he states that Theory is essential for organizing both our thoughts and facts but theory also represents a prior choice of view that biases one’s outlook, decision and advice. The choice of the right ("optional") theory for the particular problem is the most important act at all levels (p.10).

5.1. Development

Erik Dahmén’s, Development Blocks refer to a set of factors in industrial development that are closely interconnected and interdependent. Some of them are reflected in price and cost signals in markets noted by firms that may give rise to new techniques and new products. Some of them come about by firms creating new markets for their products via entrepreneurial activities in other industries. This, too, may include the creation of new techniques and new products. In both cases, incomplete development blocks generate both difficulties and opportunities for firms.

The following examples of transformation should be sufficient to pave the way to the next analytical steps:

Introduction of new methods for production and marketing,

Appearance of new and marketable products and services,

Opening up of new markets,

Exploitation of new sources of raw materials and energy,

Scrapping of 'old' methods of producing and marketing products and services,

Disappearance of 'old' products and services,

Decline and fall of 'old' markets,

Closing of 'old' sources of raw material and energy.

A characteristic feature of almost every transformation is a constant conflict between 'new' and 'old' things, in which entrepreneurial activities, implying a two-way traffic between technical - in a broad sense - developments and economic changes play a decisive role. This means that it is largely a matter of innovations and their diffusion as well as creative destruction. What happens is not only that new things with lower prices or higher quality compete 'old' products and services out of the market. Many new things also open up previously unknown possibilities and generate new needs. This will have consequences for other producers who may be confronted with a more or less compelling necessity to adapt to new market situations due to actual or expected changes in raw material prices and wages, or due to the fact that people have become induced to spend money on the new products or services instead of on the ‘old’ ones.

5.2. Information processors - computers

Bolter, J David, professor in the School of Literature has written about Communications and Culture and states:

I have chosen to write about computers because these machines should and, I think will provide the sturdiest bridge between the world of science and the traditional worlds of philosophy, history, and art.

By promising (or threatening) to replace man, the computer is giving us a new definition of man as an "information processor", and of nature as an "information to be processed". I call those who accept this view of man and nature Turing´s man.

Turing´s belief in artificial intelligence: By making a machine think as a man, man recreates himself, defines himself as a machine.

5.3 Information

Without pictures of the future we will loose action capacity, but with such pictures we can legitimate both decisions and actions in present time. The problem is that they are so changeable.

Information can be seen as "interpreted data".

Peter Temin in Inside the Business Enterprise, Historical Perspectives of the use of Information, gives the following introduction.

The first theme is analytic. In this view information is the key element to the functioning of an enterprise. The scarcity of information gives rise to institutional arrangements to economize its use. The complexity of information induces simplifications and abstractions, notably in the form of accounting.

The second theme is historical. The modern business enterprise is a creature of the last century.

Together with Daniel M. G. Raff he wrote about

Business History and Recent Economic Theory:

Imperfect Information, Incentives, and the Internal Organization of Firms:

The English school believed in abstract reasoning and models along the lines pioneered by Ricardo, Mill, and Marshall.

The German school believed in inductive reasoning exemplified by Sombart and Weber.

Both schools of thought have endured, but the English methodology captured the seats of power within economics. German methodology survived in business schools.

Institutions have emerged to facilitate decision making in the presence of incomplete information.

Business historians have adopted a literary style that is short on generalizations. Economists employ mathematics that assumes away details.

The recent economic theory of industry and firms has turned its attention to conditions of imperfect information and limited competition. Knowledge is assumed to be partial and costly.

Jo Anne Yates wrote about Investing in Information,

Supply and Demand Forces in the Use of Information in American Firms, 1850-1920

The period was one of firm growth and evolution. Many American firms first recognized the value of and invested in systematic internal information. This case study shows how these supply and demand factors interacted over time in a single company the Scoveill Manufacturing Company. Manufacturing companies adopted new production technologies expanded to serve the large markets created by the railroads and telegraph.

Technology: typewriter, adding machine, and telegraph.

Bureaucratic techniques: forms, indexing systems, and graphic representation.

Storage and retrieving: vertical files

Bengt-Arne Vedin writes about information:

The primary information sector is considered as that part of the economy where there is free competition. The information sector contains all information based activity. Porat has given its topology:

Information is a badly defined product

Information is not scarce - maybe rather affluent

Information is not resource demanding

Information is to a large extent indivisible

Information is still left after it has been sold

Information has a tendency always to be leaking out

Information is increasing, amplifying, retracted, developing along with its usage and application.

The word information can similarly to knowledge have many meanings. There are also degrees of knowledge. We may also relate knowledge to its usefulness and information to its relevance to a person or an organization. It also has the dimension of reliability and accuracy. In organizations handling knowledge it is important to distribute the knowledge and competence that is available within the organization and to develop and acquire new knowledge, transform knowledge into products and services and to develop knowledge workers.

6. HISTORY OF COMMUNICATION AND COMPUTERS – innovations

6.1 Bricks for building

Let us go back and look for some major steps or innovations.

Development is a series of events depending on previous events. Some events can in retrospect be considered strategic or mark milestones in development. Certain inventions may cause a shift in focus or a shift in paradigm. Some milestones may be set out.

1878 The Cathode ray tube is invented by Crookes, an English chemist.

1947 The transistor is developed by Walter Brattain, John Bardeen, and William Shockley

Dr John Bardeen, Dr Walter Brattain and Dr William Schockley discovered the transistor effect and developed the first device in December 1947, while the three were members of the technical staff at the Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1956.

Kilby and Noyce were pioneers in integrated circuitry. Who was first can be questioned as for many inventions.

Jack St.Clair Kilby of Texas Instruments and his colleges Jerry D. Merryman and James H.Van Tassel in 1967 filed for patent of the first hand-carried mini-calculator using Kilby´s patent on the integrated circuit. The prototype CalTec weighed 1,2kg. It had the four basic calculation functions. In 1972 Jack Kilby got the National Science Medal handed over by president Richard Nixon. The integration of functions into small chips has allowed construction of millions of functions in very limited space. This has been essential for all modern electronic technology. In 1972 Hewlett Packard presented its HP-35.

ARPA-net in 1969 was pre-runner to the internet revolution 20 years later.

In process industry Digital Equipment in the 60s and 70s made significant contributions.

For personal computers Microsoft in recent years has tried to embrace operating systems and office programs in a mix.

Development is not the work of one man or one company or one state. It is a series of events in which some bright men may be discerned initiators. Looking at all ideas at one single instant would look like ants rushing around seemingly without a decisive goal but still managing to accomplish constructions and societies of considerable complexity. Once an innovation has taken off from its slow start the credit may fall on some organization or individual in retrospect. The idea may have been in many minds in the mean time. The strive to be the first however is one of the incentives of individuals and firms to engage in research and development.

6.2 Communication History

Communication in the aspect used here is information exchange and facilitation of exchange in a broader sense. Communication timelines can be seen in appendix 2.

Communication in different forms is important for economic welfare enabling the benefits of comparative advantage in the Ricardo definition promoting exchange of goods. Today communication is maybe even more important in financial transactions and exchange of information and services in general and control of military and civil activities. Internet now links people together in a way not dreamed of some decades ago.

Communication has a long history. Postal service for governmental purpose was in use in China in 900 B.C. Different relay methods such as trumpets, drums, beacon fires and mirrors were used by the greeks in 500 B.C.

In the 18^th century regular mail ships went between England and its colonies.

Mechanical semaphore systems were built in France.

In the 19^th century electrical means of communication were developed and put into service with telegraph, telephones and radio. Communication cables were laid over the Atlantic. Berzelius at the beginning of the century discovered the selenium sensibility to light. Late in the century the cathode ray tube, CRT, was invented.

At the beginning of the 20^th century theories of TV were set up and radio communication came into normal use in the navy. The penetration of discoveries and inventions into common use was not as quick as it is today. The communication development itself has speeded up the transmission of ideas and innovation process to embrace the world in months or years instead of many decades in previous centuries.

The base for the present development was to a large extent formed in the 19^th century. This gives perspective on this essay which deals with the 20^th century and mainly the last half of the century. The transistor was born in December 1947 and that was a major event in history.

6.3 Computer History

Computing tools and calculating machines were invented long ago.

Let us see at some milestones of development.

1640 - 1680 -- The mechanical calculators of Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Leibnitz

1820 -- Charles Babbage, the Difference Engine

1833 -- Charles Babbage, work on the Analytical Engine

1884 -- Herman Hollerith, punched-card tabulating machine

1938 -- Konrad Zuse, the Z1, personal project

1943 -- Alan Turing, Colossus, Bletchley Park, England

1946 -- John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, Jr., the ENIAC, the University of Pennsylvania

1951 -- Mauchly & Eckert, the UNIVAC I

1952 -- Mauchly, Eckert, and John von Neumann, the EDVAC, University

of Pennsylvania

1959 -- Jack Kilby, Robert Noyce and the integrated circuit

1963 -- Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), PDP-8 minicomputer

1964 -- Seymour Cray, the CDC 6600

1964 -- IBM System 360

1975 -- Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, Apple I

1981 -- IBM PC

See also appendix 3 and 4

Computer development

By 1948, the invention of the transistor greatly changed the development of computers. The transistor replaced the large, cumbersome vacuum tube in televisions, radios and computers. As a result, the size of electronic machinery has been shrinking ever since.

The transistor was at work in the computer by 1956. Coupled with early advances in magnetic-core memory, transistors led to second generation computers that were smaller, faster, more reliable and more energy-efficient than their predecessors. The first large-scale machines to take advantage of this transistor technology were early super-computers, Stretch by IBM and LARC by Sperry-Rand. These computers, both developed for atomic energy laboratories, could handle an enormous amount of data, a capability much in demand by atomic scientists.

The machines were costly, however, and tended to be too powerful for the business sector's computing needs, thereby limiting their attractiveness. Only two LARCs were ever installed, one in the Lawrence Radiation Labs in Livermore, California, for which the computer was named (Livermore Atomic Research Computer) and the other at the U.S. Navy Research and Development Center in Washington, D.C. Second generation computers replaced machine language with assembly language, allowing abbreviated programming codes to replace long, difficult binary codes.

Throughout the early 1960's, there were a number of commercially successful second generation computers used in business, universities, and government from companies such as Burroughs, Control Data, Honeywell, IBM, Sperry-Rand, and others. These second generation computers were also of solid state design, and contained transistors in place of vacuum tubes. They also contained all the components we associate with the modern day computer: printers, tape storage, disk storage, memory, operating systems, and stored programs.

One important example was the IBM 1401, which was universally accepted throughout industry, and is considered by many to be the Model T of the computer industry. By 1965, most large business routinely processed financial information using second generation computers.

6.4 Operating Systems and Programming tools

Operating systems are programs interfacing the computer hardware with the application and communication programs.

General programs are widely used platforms for general use in different forms to ease the use of computers. Dedicated programs are for specific applications and often written directly on behalf of a certain customer or category of users.

Programming became an obstacle as the hardware developed.

Most business interest initially centered around processing numbers and information on customers, inventory, orders, and sales.  The key problem was a lack of SOFTWARE to make the new computers achieve the desired results.  Unlike hardware, software was entirely intellectual property, and specific software solutions had to be developed by people for every particular problem.  The development of software was not only extremely time consuming, but also very expensive, costing 200% to 400% of the price of the computer hardware.  It was also very hard to find programmers who could do the job.

Computer hardware could only understand binary information. This meant that all program instructions and data had to be written in, or translated to, a combination of only two possible values 0 and 1.  These values could then be processed as positive or negative electrical charges by the hardware; the computer by itself was just a pile of on/off switches.

Novell was the first to realize that PCs could be connected with boards and a special operating system to enable one or more PCs- to act as a SERVER to the connected CLIENT PCs.  In 1982, -Ray Noorda established Novell in Provo, Utah to design and market PC "networking" software called NetWare.

UNIX  is the other leading contender as an Intel PC Server OS with the key companies being SCO (The Santa Cruz Operation) which has pioneered Intel UNIX since 1979, and Sun which is the leading UNIX for the Internet with Sun OS and Solaris.

LINUX operating system was developed by Linus Torvald in 1991 for his own need to be used by computers in a network when he studied at Helsinki University. Linux was spread through Internet as a free ware program. It is being continually developed by people all over the world with Linus Torvald as the coordinator of upgrading. Linus is his creation and he was granted time to nurse it when he accepted an employment with Transmeta in California. He says that if he had charged for the operationg system it would not have become as good. Many big companies now support Linux. People in the communication business consider the transparency and control better with Linux than Windows NT. Together with Java, a Sun developed language, Linux is gaining support as the operation system in the internet world.

Netscapes deputy manager in October 1998, predicted that Linux will grow faster than Windows NT.

Computer Languages Emerge

Assemblers were developed with mnemonic codes representing computer code instructions

Programming in assembler language needed knowledge of each movement of data between different registers in a computer. A skilled programmer could write programs utilizing the memory and registers efficiently. The core memory was very expensive many dollars per byte For the same amount a million bytes of primary memory now can be bought. Each type of computer had its own proprietary instruction set, which defined methods and binary sequences for performing its functions.  Since 0s and 1s are tedious and difficult to interpret, alphanumeric strings were developed as aliases for each instruction.  These sequences became known as assembly language, and the literal 0/1 sequences became known as machine language.  Yet, assembly language itself was very difficult to use, because it was very code-oriented and performed only low-level functions.

IBM realized that a high-level language needed to be created that abstracted these instructions into more useful alphanumeric commands.  The commands in the new high-level language needed to be understandable to people, so that larger and more complex programs could be written with less effort.  FORTRAN, FORmulaTRANslation, was developed by IBM by 1957 as the first high-level language.  It had the ability to quickly and accurately manipulate numerical sequences.

Admiral Grace Hopper, at the U. S. Department of the Navy, set out to define a high-level language to enable business functions.  She directed the development efforts of COBOL, COmmon Business Oriented Language.  It was the first computer language to be structured like the English language.  COBOL supported many common business tasks, and was the first computer language to use a compiler, which could automatically translate the language into assembly language.  The concept of automation was coined.  A primary goal became moving business and scientific tasks onto computers.

BASIC, Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, was developed by two professors, John Kemeny and Kenneth Kurtz, at Dartmouth in the mid 1960s as a computer language incorporating the basics of computer programming.

PASCAL is a more general programming language than Basic with a structure that allows for easier combinations of procedures that can be written as smaller programs to be used in different applications. By defining variables using previously defined variables such as arrays of vectors complex functions can be handled in an easy way.

C++ provides a language suitable in on-line applications such as process control.

Object oriented programming is a way to program blocks that can be tested separately with its own input data and with well defined interface to other program blocks.

6.5. Interface - Input/ Output

During the early 1960s, major computer manufacturers began to offer a range of computer capabilities and prices, as well as various peripheral equipment.  Consoles and card feeders were designed for input, and a variety of output devices emerged such as printers, CRTs,

plotters, and storage media including magnetic tapes and hard disks.

Sensors are the interface between the basic or primary industrial process and the control and information system. They can be simple but tend to become more and more complex. Microprocessors are used to convert the primary sensor output into transmission data. In this format data and values can be checked and the equipment itself may also be checked. This off-loads the communication computers and central computers from handling more data than necessary. Sensors can also be TV cameras which can give overviews and detailed pictures of parts of a plant or process. Information can be centralized and a better overview and quicker correction response issued. With component data stored in data bases repair and replacement orders can be sent quickly.

7. DEVELOPMENT - an interactive process

7.1. Introduction

Writing the history of control systems describing the technical development and the functions would lead too far for this essay. The essay is written within the scope of Economic History at Stockholm University where little interest is paid to technology and modern economic development which to a great deal is technologically bound. Therefore I have chosen to highlight the incentives as this comes closer to the work within the faculty.

Finding explicit incentives for development is more difficult then finding technical descriptions. Decisions taken by the board and in particular the underlying discussions are for some period of time considered business secrets and may also be discussed only in small groups with no or little in writing. As secrets become less secret with time and sufficient time has passed, disclosure is permitted but people and papers may not be found or filed in some special archive. ABB has given me support in finding information for which I am grateful. This paper will have been presented to ABB for approval before being published.

Jan Glete has concluded that the electric vision was a sufficient driving force behind the ASEA development from the end of the nineteenth century until around the 1930s or 1940s, and that the possible decrease in dynamic efficiency from the end of the 1930s until the 1950s, in time coincides with a period when external circumstances (the firm protectionism, the second world war, the following trade barriers) made it difficult to have an efficient competition.

I doubt that the electric vision was a sufficient driving force and will discuss this later.

7.2. ASEA/ABB - Control Systems

History

It may be believed that an industrial manufacturer like ASEA would have research units planning for future products. That is true to a limited extent only. Development has to be operative, which means it has to have the market ahead to consider and not very far ahead. I used to think of ASEA as a very technical company, with a very deep knowledge in many fields, facilitating sales of plants that were vaguely conceptually ready, less so technically analyzed and specified. A broad understanding of possibilities was enough to take orders on projects that were only sketches on paper. Good resources of qualified engineers allowed this behavior. Development within a short time frame can be efficient. Sometimes there had to be failures but basically this was an efficient way of development.

Limited time often is the best driving force to reach acceptable solutions. These solutions may later be refined. Development becomes an organizational matter that of organizing project teams. Cooperation with customers is essential under these circumstances. I think ASEA has been very good at this. Business opportunities have been taken seriously, reputably and with good results. With the new management and also the joining of ASEA with Brown Boveri to ABB the company has become commercially vitalized on the global market.

In 1972-73 I was employed by ASEA/FKGC, sales of remote control systems, with an assisting and learning period of 7 months with ASEA-LME AUTOMATION.

History 1964-75

H. Schiott :

1964 - IFAC-IFIP conference in Stockholm on process control

- Submarine control is studied by YR

1967. - The first CON/PAC systems are delivered with delays and low reliability

- "Mini"-computers advance, numerous PDP-8 are to be used

- LME sells UAC 1601 to Korsnas and Iggesund

1968. - ASEA selects CDC 1700 as a process computer

- FC is established, gathering all ASEA process computer resources

1969. -Seven CDC 1700 are sold out of which three to British Steel and a number of PDP-8-systems
1970. - Regional service offices are established in Hassleholm, Pitea and Gothenburg

 

1971. - ASEA-LME Automation is formed from ASEA/FC and LME/MI

1972 - Order of a simulator for nuclear plant control

1973 - Swedish State Power Board order of a wide online data acquisition system

with CDC minicomputers

1974. - Development of base products for control. MODCOMP computers are chosen,

Hans Wallgren:

After a pioneering period 1964-68 it was decided that computer business should be moved from the ASEA electronic sector to a more central unit. Thus in 1968 FC was formed as a sales oriented department and ASEA was rather swiftly moving to a leading position within the computer field in Sweden. The formation of AUTOMATION in 1971 meant that big resources were added but also meant many difficult projects to accomplish, when at the same time the cooperation with other ASEA units became more cumbersome. In spite of this a rather well established computer business can in 1975 be handed over to ASEA. Much is still not done in product formation in spite of big efforts. Among causes to the weak progress can be mentioned that the original products have had a very short life and that AUTOMATION has been project and plant oriented and has not been allowed to acquire its own hardware construction. The activity to deal with complicated computer projects has been elaborated and pre-requisitions today exist to operate this business profitably. When AUTOMATION was formed an order stock of 38.4MSEK was transferred from ASEA out of which 36.4MSEK was completed, and 13,3MSEK from LME out of which 5.9MSEK was completed.

Extracts of ASEA power control development in some decades

1926. Control of a power plant in Surahammar with a forerunner to the synchro-selector which was used up to1949

1930. Control for Southern Railway and Saltsjöbanan

1930 Power balance by difference measuring

1949. Register-selector in relay technology

1958. Impulse code selector used up to 1970, separate cables for measuring, later period-time method for measuring of selected object

1969. SINDAC 700, with pure binary coded data and check bits transfer, for Stora Kopparberg with the first PDP-8 computer for power balance calculation and reports

1970 SINDAC 600 standardized for Colombia, first national dispatch center

Harald Hecht :

1968. Electromechanical systems

1968. Transistorized electronic systems

1974. Integrated electronic circuits

1975- Micro computers

Minicomputer-based systems

1971. Tailor-made systems with first generation mini-computers

1971-1977 Standardized systems SINDAC 2

Technical development and supplier motives inclusive sales arguments

Ulrich Hecht :

What is to gain by remote control of main substations, substations and converter stations?

Unmanning stations means that staff can be reduced, but not leaving stations without supervision. Rapidly and flexibly the network can be switched, transformers and converters connected and disconnected, which especially in night time and weekends is with less friction than with people sent out, and at disturbances knowledge of what has occurred is received rapidly and selectively, suitable measures can be taken either by sending a man out directly to the place pointed to or maybe only be sending an order through the remote control.

Routinely supervision includes reading of bus bar voltage, transformer- or converter current, transformer tap changer position and sometimes the power received from the high voltage side.

The systems in the 1950s were based on communication by cables often a number of pairs, in some systems reduced by duplex communication similar to that in telephone communication. Stations could also be arranged in communication circuits covering many stations in a loop. Measuring of power could be by compensation methods where an amplifier adjusted the receiver end momentum to equal that of the remote station. Such a system is described in technical details.

Remote control of hydropower stations (extract from an ASEA paper 1960s p60)

The technical prerequisites for remote control of hydropower stations to a larger extent existed already at the beginning of the 1930s. Up to 1950 remote control was applied of a 20-fold stations together about 150 MW. Since 1950 remote control has been applied in ever bigger and ever more numerous plants and in 1963 about one quarter of total Swedish power production comes from remote controlled hydropower stations, e.g. about 2250MW. Unit sizes up to 140MW exist.

The reason for the great interest in remote control of bigger stations in recent years is to be found among the following three circumstances:

1. Difficulties in recruiting personnel to remotely situated stations.
2. Lower annual costs for the operation.
3. Good operation security of the remote control systems and other station equipment.

In an automated power plant the main normal operational interest is power regulation.

Remote control includes also start and stop orders with indication response of received and performed order. The long start-up time makes it is possible to insert intermediate indications such as start magnet initiation, aggregate has started running, synchronization equipment has become activated and finally that the generator circuit breaker has been closed. The start sequence can also be observed on the metering instruments of speed and voltage on the remote control panel or on the desk. Sometimes it is desirable to remotely control or phase in line circuit breakers and to switch the control from remote control of the power generation to local automation by which the turbine control gates are automatically controlled through a water level gage.

Remote control with the impulse code system

Free translation of parts of a pamphlet ASEA 7614 b

What is the aim with the remote control in power technology? Centralized operation has become more and more desired in electricity utility, railway- and industrial plants. With modern remote control technique the centers have the possibility of continual information on the situation in the substations, and if so desired actively take part in the operation. The power resources can be utilized better, the network operational conditions can be changed easily, according to economic and operational aspects. Staffing can be reduced and foremost of all disturbances can be remedied in a short time by rapid sectioning of the network and by connection of spare aggregates and reconnection of power lines.

For short distances up to some kilometers simple maneuvering terminal equipment can be used favorably with one more conductor appointed to every controlled item. With increasing distance and number of items to be operated the cable costs increase considerably. Thus systems that need only few conductors become more economic, most importantly the selector systems, by which only one temporary channel is established from the control station to the substation item to be controlled (compare with automatic telephone exchanges). One of these is the synchronous selector system (compare with ASEA paper 1938, no 1, pp. 2-14) with 3-4 connected conductors up to a maximum length of some tenths kilometers. In these systems the selectors are stepped up synchronously in all connected stations upon which the order is actuated via a separate conductor.

At larger distances and a larger number of controlled items, especially when direct current can not be used for impulse transmission, such selector systems are more suitable where the order and position indication is transmitted in the form of a specific impulse telegram. One such system is the register selector system.

A new generally applicable selector system is the impulse code system named after the way the order and position indication is controlled for correct recognition at the receiving station. The security check against wrong function is that every second impulse is prolonged and that the telegram always contains a certain number of impulses. Indications are of double active indication type with two open contacts indicating failure and two open contacts may be used for special purpose. Stations and groups are selected first. The groups of ten items for indication are selected in two steps to increase the selection speed, the first one is for odd or even number and the following 5 to give the decimal number. For control orders only one item can be reached in one cycle as the unit number selection is shortened and followed by a check and operation release, then a pause awaiting operation time of the breaker and finally a rapid indication to the control station.

The impulse code system allows operation and indication of up to 500 circuit breakers or other switched items, maybe distributed on several substations and with only one transmission channel in each direction. The channel should allow 12 impulses per second without much distortion.

Remote metering can be with cyclic measuring systems such as ASEA period time system (fag 1118 b) e.g. systems where a number of measurements are transmitted during a cycle which is repeated. The selection system can be used to select a specific metering point for instance during regulation.

The system described above was a step towards more modern digital systems. It was however based upon different length of pulses to fit relays. It was also relatively slow. This system could however be transistorized to increase the speed.

In 1968 Stora Kopparberg placed an order on a remote control system that had to be developed with integrated circuits and a computer at the control center. The delivery time was very tight, main part ready for operation in November 1969 and warranties stringent but ASEA managed to meet all requirements and got a system suitably situated to show prospective customers worldwide. ASEA could catch up with Brown Bovery and Landis & Gyr.

The development has continued as pointed out by Folke Dahlfors, ABB.

We may consider the development in the 70s to have been technical supervision and control allowing for unmanning of remotely situated stations and concentration of control to a central control room. The economy of control was a better control of the generation and the power exchange with other generation companies. Systems for supervision were tailor-made to fit each company. Computers were used essentially to register operational data such as water levels of reservoirs, energy generation per hour, active and reactive power, voltage, circuit breaker and isolator positions and events. Events were transmitted with priority as rapid as possible.

Computers were also used for calculations but expensive as they were they were initially not used with CRT screens to show the network and status of operation. This came in the 70s. A power system has to be very reliable and to let computers handle protection and switching was not conceivable. They could be used for calculations and support to the operators who had big panel board and switches to visualize the network. When computers became cheaper and two computers could work together to increase the reliability more controls could go through the computers. This was a gradual transition. The operator still was responsible for most critical operations. Local automatic equipment took care of local faults.

A major blackout occurred in New York when a large part of the network broke down as one breaker after the other tripped on overload. Branch interest then focussed on the security aspect that drove the development towards dynamic system control requiring better coordination and therefore more use of computers. With computers it also was possible to reduce the network margins or say excess investments otherwise required to ensure safe operation also at many simultaneous or consequential faults or local overload.

In the 80s the economic benefits that could be achieved by using computers was a driving force to include programs for optimization of generation and transmission system load. Optimal use of water and fuel together with common standby generation and exchange of power at market price became possible, first as batch calculations later as on-line calculations. Safety of supply could be improved with less investment in total generation capacity.

The man-machine co-operation was discussed already in the beginning of the 70s and its importance became in the 80s a driving momentum to the development of presentation systems and the working conditions of the operators at normal and disturbance situations.

The development in the generation and transmission part of the power network spread in the 90s to the distribution networks. Standardization continued and made it possible to include these parts of the networks that were not as dynamic in operation as the main generation system. There were also other functions in distribution that could be computerized such as material and work order management. Complete management systems could be arranged. The degree and time for introduction of these management systems varied between companies.

Competition has increased since 1995 with the deregulation and de-monopolization of electricity supplies. Although the free competition is not complete for the distribution network it is a driving force on distribution companies and also generation companies to become more efficient. The large generation companies have been aggressive and many small companies and municipal utilities have found it best to sell the utility part to the power generation companies. Some have met the competition by low costs operation with simple market solutions with computer for management and control. We are now in 1999 only at the beginning of this transition era. The negotiation situation may become difficult for a small owner of a distribution network for which can be charged only some by a network authority approved price to cover the distribution network cost and the power has to be bought or be sold by some supply company. About one third of the consumer cost is for distribution, one third for generation/transmission and one third for taxes. Competition is free on the generation/transmission part only.

7.3. Stora Kopparberg – establishing a power control center

Background

I was employed during four years from February 1966 as one of two internal consultants within the power department of Stora Kopparberg. The power department produced and distributed about 5% of Swedish electricity. The company has its roots in the 12^th and 13^th centuries mine industry and is considered the oldest alive company in the world. It was mainly an iron and steel producing company until the 1970s when iron and steel was discharged of and pulp and paper became dominant. In 1998 Stora joined the Finnish company Enso and head office will be in Helsinki.

The environment in Falun was pleasant and stimulating. My responsibility was to assist construction and operation departments and plan for extensions of generation and transmission.

Electricity was supplied to the company industries, Domnarvet Steel Works, Wikmanshyttan Steel Works, Söderfors Steel Works, Kvarnsveden Paper Mill, Skutskär Pulp Mill, several mines, Falu sulfur acid factory, regional distribution and external utilities.

Electricity generation was mainly in hydro power plants in Dalälven river.

Stora also had shares in a steam power plant in Västerås and in Oskarhamn nuclear power plant w Stora belonged to the Wallenberg group as did ASEA. The relations with ASEA were good. I, myself, came straight from ASEA, and my mentor and co-consultant Per-Erik Torseke also had that background.

I had been employed with ASEA HVDC, the high voltage direct current sector in Ludvika, by Gunnar Engström, then head of that sector, later head of the electronic sector in Västerås. Through the engineers’ club in Ludvika we met to discuss various problems, such as problems with voltage flicker caused by the big steel furnaces in Borlänge, which could be solved with thyristor control of reactive power. That was the embryo to ASEA dominance in that field.

After an initial warming up period Torseke asked me to deal with generation and transmission so he could concentrate on the industries.

Limited remote control had been studied in the past at several occasions but decisions had been postponed. I thought it better to see further ahead and plan for an extensive control. Existing control was of local character, from one control room to some adjacent station.

The work took, as part time job, several years and the remote control system had just been commissioned when I left Stora Kopparberg early in 1970.

The goal was to create a picture in Borlänge of the total production and the exchange of power with the Swedish bulk system for better control. Disturbances such as breaker tripping and station faults should be signaled quickly. Operating staff in the power plant of Långhag controlling also Stora Skedvi could be trained for work in the new control room in Borlänge. Operators continuously on duty in the control room of the biggest hydro plant Trängslet could be freed from the desk and work during daytime with maintenance. This meant savings in staff cost.

The most important, but difficult to assess accurately, was the improvement of efficiency in operating the power generation and the network, in particular the exchange of power with external companies, which was difficult to handle within preset limits of hourly energy agreed on in advance. For this a computer could be used to calculate the required adjustments as assistance to the control staff.

The Procurement Phase

In order to get a good price and yet to meet the required warranties for a good working system, the system was split on different components for which tenders could be asked for. Stora was free to select other compositions than one total system supplier could have done. Still it was possible to have the main component supplier responsible for coordination. Stora also had the competence to buy system parts and put together to a working system.

Four main control suppliers were asked to give tenders on the main control part, ASEA, Brown Boveri (BBC), Landis & Gyr and Siemens.

Landis & Gyr presented the most modern and elegant set-up, BBC an acceptable but rigid solution but with a long delivery time. Siemens offered a not quite modern solution and ASEA a not at all modern system, but a much lower price, after finding out that the technology was not so good.

Stora ranked Landis & Gyr first, despite the higher price, but ASEA could after a decision by the general manager Curt Nicolin, at discussions in Västerås with Stora’s Power Director Vilgot Lanner, come with a proposal which was satisfactory both in price and delivery time. Gunnar Engström, then head of ASEA electronic sector, came to Falun to show what they could achieve. The personal contacts and the trust in ASEA then were essential to accept the presented solution.

For ASEA the system was very valuable as it was easily accessible for demonstration and it gave ASEA a rapid development in power control. The system worked satisfactorily during more than fifteen years before being replaced with a new system as motivated below by Per-Erik Torseke.

Motives for replacement - a new power dispatch system

Per-Erik Torseke :

The power industry has in general selected remote control of production and transmission systems. It has been possible to justify this economically through organizational and plant dependant savings.

The remote control system in the Dalälven region that was taken into operation in 1969/70 is mainly motivated by reduced staff required. The system embraces one third of power and transformer stations – those most important. With the selling out of distribution utilities in several areas our staff in the field has decreased substantially since then, without corresponding increase of the control system. We hit the capacity limit of the equipment already in 1978. For some important stations, that have been added – also the most important Repbäcken – provisional systems totally aside from the main system have had to be resorted to.

The present system will in practice be 20 years old, before it can be replaced, if a decision is taken now. The equipment is still working and that is the case until the day it no longer works. Then it would take at least three years before new equipment has been planned, procured, installed and commissioned. It would be necessary to revert to manning of the stations. With increasing failure rate and without access to spares and knowledge (nobody has sufficient knowledge of this old equipment) from the supplier, worry is increasing for how such a situation can be handled with present staffing.

New equipment would cover most stations and also include more functions to improve instant as well as long term overview of the generation and transmission.

Jan Lövgren:

Our present remote control system was taken into operation in 1969/70 and is soon 15 years. If a decision is taken on a new control system the old one has to be kept alive another 3-4 years. There is no manufacturing and no spares can be acquired at reasonable cost and reasonable time. It is to be noted that the capacity limit has been reached long ago and the system is extremely time consuming, expensive and difficult to make changes in.

For remote controlled stations that have been added since 1978 provisional arrangements have been resorted to in the form of different makes separated from the main control system.

The working situation in the dispatch center tends to be unacceptable, considering the background mentioned above.

Today we can wholly or partially control and supervise less than half the number of our power and transformer stations.

Although the main stations are included remote control is missing in:

- The network north of Trängslet, e.g. Särna och Idre

- The network in Siljan region, e.g. Älvdalen and Orsa

- The network north of Falun, e.g. Svärdsjö, Linghed and Tänger

With a new supervision system a lot of functions will be introduced, apart from increasing the number of stations, such as more failure signals, limit supervision of measurements, event recording, water flow calculation, statistics measurements, time marking of events at report failure, report printing etc.), all with the purpose of improving instantaneous as well as the long term overview of the network and the production.

By the selling out distribution utilities our field staff has successively been reduced and will continue to be. Important transmission lines and stations remain in the whole region. This as such motivates a first class supervisory system to manage operation, not the least at failures outside office hours.

The new system has been procured with ABB as the main supplier.

7.4 Cooperation - Summary

ASEA was in my opinion in the 1960s and 70s an extremely technical company with a very wide and deep collective knowledge in engineering in many fields. Västerås and Ludvika provided a technical environment that by itself could be inspiring for technical achievements, although it might also become too much of the same and in that way limited. ASEA became engaged in most of the industry development in Sweden and this industry must have been a driving force. With the demand side asking for more and more the supply side had to respond. And the deep know-how of the processes was with the demand side. And what was good for the industry was good for ASEA and for Sweden. Cooperation has been essential in Swedish industrial development. Competition from mainly German manufacturers of electrical equipment was certainly also stimulating. ASEA was however more closely engaged.

Many companies belonged to the Wallenberg group and an unspoken demand to cooperate. Surely the interest shown by the banking family Wallenberg in industrial development was a driving force especially for ASEA. Wallenberg had a great influence as board members and majority or minority owners of investment companies, trusts and foundations and a bank. The links were well felt but there were no formal restrictions in buying equipment from other manufacturers than ASEA. Competition was free but the favor of having ASEA close by supporting the operation when needed with advise, service and spare parts could be given a value that other suppliers could not offer. The cooperation was natural and beneficial to both parties. Furthermore the personal contacts often were good. Engineers often had there first years in ASEA from where the industry recruited them when needed. These links with the industry was certainly paid-off well. The more links you have the easier you cooperate. And with these relations trust follows which makes relations long lasting and results become good mostly to both the selling and purchasing side.

The cooperation between Stora and ASEA in the case of remote control and in reactive power compensation was the kind of cooperation that ASEA is used to in other fields too. Development and new generations of equipment and systems may be developed not until the right opportunity arises. With good engineering most can now be calculated and simulated before construction on site. And very seldom arise difficulties that can not be overcome during commissioning or the first year upon commissioning. Warranties may be strict on reliability and availability and this leads to substantial calculations of solutions that meet the guarantees. System deliveries are complex and need individual solutions. These solutions are built partly on old solutions and partly on new ones. Sufficient statistical data are mostly available or can be estimated to construct the combinations required to meet the demand. Computers are a must in these calculations today.

The life of a system is often limited by the economic life time not the technical life time. The economic life time depends on new equipment and facilities that gives a better total business result than keeping the old equipment. The Stora power control system became to small when the network expanded and as old equipment was not manufactured a new system had to be built. In this new system some parts of the old system could be integrated. But the new system has a much higher capacity in all respects. It was also needed to give the operation staff good working conditions.

The development has been very rapid in data treatment. The closer we come to the actual process, such as the hydro turbines and generators the longer is the economic life expectancy and equipment close to these main items may also have a long economic life span. More sensors are added to supervise the condition of the main and auxiliary equipment. These sensors can be equipped with microprocessors and communication to a computer for further processing and communication with a control center for registration and action if required. Data bases are formed that keep information about condition and detailed component data for maintenance, repair and exchange. Local stationary staff that may be difficult to recruit may not be needed.

Mutual respect and responsibility for agreements is essential. Local trade is favored by this. Specialization now forces us to go out on the global markets where we may not yet have the confidence relations and will have to rely more on standards, laws and contracts in our relations. With modern communication such as internet we may restore a situation on the global market similar to the local conditions but will it ever be the same? We have to meet people face to face. Can we do that enough. When communication includes simultaneous voice and face at both ends travelling may not have to be as frequent as it is just now. And we are probably there soon.

Jan Glete, 1984, concluded that the electric vision was a sufficient driving force behind the ASEA development from the end of the nineteenth century until around the 1930s or 1940s. If so this vision must have been refreshed often in some methodic way. The electric vision sounds to me a bit too simple an explanation to the development. I would think the demand for equipment by the growing industry was a very important factor in the development.

Eliasson stresses the importance of control in his sentence: Machines and labor hours have no economic value without a dominant competence to guide and control their allocation and end use

Dahmén writes: A characteristic feature of almost every transformation is a constant conflict between 'new' and 'old' things, in which entrepreneurial activities, implying a two-way traffic between technical - in a broad sense - developments and economic changes play a decisive role.

I have added the two-way traffic between the company looking for the solution of a problem and defining its demand and the industrial systems supplier who solves the problem by assembling components and programs from his own production facilities or by supplies from external sources. If he does not meet the requirements he may develop the missing items driven by his interest in meeting the market demand and market competition. An industrial system delivery is often complex and requires a considerable know-how in general and specific knowledge. By cooperation with the customer the special process knowledge can be fed into the development.

The standard economic theory of demand and supply relation has to be modified from quantity-price curves of demand and supply and their crossing point, to include the very wide variety of demand of special functions in both quantity and quality to be met by design and assembly of a system meeting this demand competing with other suppliers both in performance and price. Operation analysis similar to that of military complex operations that has to be used. He has to be flexible enough to allow different demands to be met at costs which gives him a good revenue. He also has to offer and reach the reliability and availability quality that the customer is asking for and is willing to pay for.

Failure to meet expectations can jeopardize long term relations.

Vedin wrote: In organizations handling knowledge it is important to distribute the knowledge and competence that is available within the organization and to develop and acquire new knowledge, transform knowledge into products and services and to develop knowledge workers.

The history shows that development is not a recent phenomenon. We think of development now as very rapid, but looking at the history we see foundations stemming long time back. Look at the computer history, look at the communication history. It is easy to become nearsighted and see the rapid changes in PCs as a measure of development in general. And internet gives us instantaneous information from all over the world. Information may look affluent. And it is available at home and everywhere. But will be much more productive. We still have to study, to get the knowledge required to understand and use information. And we have to go out in the real world and get relevant information, meet people and discuss problems and solve the problems which takes time even with help of the fastest computers. We may have to get more programs or develop new programs to do our work. We are lazy and that’s why we try to avoid the tedious work and find excuses to do something more interesting or at least new. This is innovative.

8. PROSPECTS

8.1 The range of control

Control was originally direct and thus local. Automation such as constant speed regulators was mechanical. Water wheels could drive many axles with belt drives for different speed. But only locally. War ships could be given orders with flags or other visual signals at some distance. With telegraph longer distances could be covered. With radio man to man communication over long distances became possible. Phones connected man to man between fix stations. Today we have mobile phones for speech and data man to man. But today we also have many facilities for direct control over long distances of complicated processes. The control can reach any part of a system, it can come from different places and it can have a far reaching authority. There are no technical limits for the range of control. The systems normally have built in checks that precludes unintentional mistakes and different degrees of authorization of measures allowed.

In the early phases of control the control of a power station was local. In the next phase the major control and supervision functions were possible from a central control room. As the cost of transmission and computing decreased much more information could be handled and centralized control is now possible down to the tiniest bit. With computers the essential information can be sorted out and presented on screens for the operators to act on or to react on if the process is automatic unless the operator takes over.

8.2 Integration

As has been seen control started with technical control of power generation stations from a central control room. Most important data for the control were collected and sent to the central station where data were shown on a desk, a control panel board or on a video display. Data were compiled for reports of daily and weekly results. Events were recorded and saved for maintenance and statistics.

What had earlier been collected and compiled locally was now made at the main control center. This speeded up reporting and made decision easier based on actual data and compiled for the whole network. This was the more important the larger the networks and the more important the availability of supplies. Interconnections with other networks and interchange of energy became more important and had to be controlled within certain limits as agreed upon. Purchase and sales of power became more frequent and larger.

Integration continues and economic aspects require more data to be compiled and integrated with other activities within a company business context. With the help of computers and communication between computers this integration can be performed down to the smallest and most detailed level. This then requires more data to be transmitted, stored and treated. On-line access to information is desired at different levels in a company and compiled economic information at the management level. When more information is required the transmission speed has to be increased and this requires radio links or fiber-optic transmission. With the technical development in transmission of data there are no technical restrictions. So, what can be expected.

Maintenance was earlier based on observations by operators and maintenance staff visiting the plants reading meters, listening to unusual noise or watching leakage of oil or other unusual things that trained eyes and ears could register in addition to meters and indicators. With more automation and more of remote control there was no need for continuous attendance of equipment and plants. Maintenance that may have been on a timely regular basis could by installing more sensors be according to minor deviations from normal performance. Equipment could be equipped with self-fault-finding facilities maybe also self-correcting features or disconnection of faulty units where redundant capacity was available.

Technically there are no limits in the sophistication that can be built into a plant. Economy and simplicity may be the limiting factors. With the development of electronics the cost of the supervisory part is often low compared to the main production units and output. Simplicity should be simplicity of operation and maintenance. This can also to a large degree be built into the control equipment. But there will probably be limiting factors, as the equipment becomes more complex. Specialist competence may not be available within the company and it may be necessary to have fault finding and correction performed by the manufacturer at a distance. He then has to build the supervisory requirements for this into his equipment.

Programs become more complex with a higher degree of integration. Data must be stored and retrieved in a proper way. Programs have to work together. Different users have different needs and authorities to access information. The security, availability, reliability aspects have to be safeguarded. The programs have to be easy to adjust and develop. Flexibility is required.

The economic life of computers is low compared to the economic life of the main process plant.

Equipment closely related to the process equipment generally also has a long life. This means that the interfacing between computers and process should be flexible and allow for changes in data transmission. This may be arranged so that a new higher hierarchy is formed embracing the earlier hardware oriented parts of the system. Control as the software part is likely to increase.

Integration of control means that control extends from technical control of units of operation into economic and administrative control at company and concern level. Control becomes general. As control also requires information from outside sources there is a danger of intrusion to reveal economic secrets or just cause damage. At the same time the development of control facilities would allow for statistical data to different statistics gathering organizations to be sent in an organized way with little effort if so required. Also information to share holders via internet or direct ways can be improved.

8.3 Deregulation and competition

The deregulation and competition will require integration of control. The exchange of information between supplying companies already requires information exchange practically on-line. But the further integration over continents and the more efficient use of common resources will require better control of available capacity and energy resources. A risk with deregulation is the lack of a final resource to use banking terminology. Electricity is a form of energy that is consumed practically simultaneously with the generation. With generation then is meant the transformation from energy resources like water storage, nuclear energy, chemically bound energy, wind, coal, oil, gas, waste products from forestry, industry, and households to the electricity form. Electricity has to be available constantly. We call this capacity availability. The longer term, seconds to years, is the sustainability of supply called the power demand or the energy demand.

When failures occur or when plants are out of operation for maintenance a shortage of capacity can arise unless there are running units enough to meet the instantaneous capacity demand. Who will be responsible for this spare capacity? Nobody and all. The capacity reserve must be embedded in the total system. Maintenance and risks of failures have to be known or calculated for regions and for complete electricity blocks. This requires information integration. The longer term availability of energy for electricity generation also has to be known with its risk factors of unavailability. Shortfall of energy in a region like Sweden and Norway is mainly shortage of rain and snow to fill the water storage. It can also be power plant failure that can not be repaired in time. There may also be restrictions in the use of coal fired plants due to pollution and carbon dioxide emission, see also my C-essay 1992, Energy Demand and Economic Development in the Industrial World since 1950.

The competition that follows with deregulation has caused a shift in perspective for investing in electricity generation. The risk in investing in long term projects like nuclear power and development of new nuclear power has increased. The political risks have increased of closing down nuclear plants due to antinuclear organizations pointing at the consequences of a failure similar to that of Chernobyl. The consequences of the existing multifold hazards that coal fired plants give is then overlooked. In Sweden research on new nuclear electricity generation is forbidden, like a medieval church ban. This all works in the direction of short term solutions in the choice of generation methods. The electricity generation capacity will be sufficient but the yearly electric energy supply may become insecure.

Handling shortage of energy supply will need integration on a higher level with much computing capacity and political and policy courage. How will the restrictions in carbon dioxide emissions for each country be met and controlled? Generation capacity will be available in physical terms as prices increase and plants with higher running costs, and high pollution, will be used more. Transmission capacity will have to satisfy situations of regional deficit in generation. As more regions become interconnected to make use of common resources and differences in hourly, daily and yearly consumption pattern integrated control will be required. This will probably also have to include more High Voltage Direct Current links to allow power exchange and increase network stability. HVDC allows better control of power flow. Coordination of a number of control centers will be necessary using computers and high-speed communication.

CONCLUSION

Control facilities have developed considerably in the 20^th century and are expected to continue. The use of control has meant better utilization of production equipment and less staff required at remote stations. More money and time will be used on the integration of control at company and group level. Information demand will increase from share holders and financial markets and more integration will be required. The rapid decrease in the cost of control capacity means that improved control can be justified if the output from the much costlier main process equipment can be somewhat improved. Therefore there is still very much to do in control. The demand side will ask for more and the supply side will accomplish almost whatever imagination can come up with. Knowledge has to be centralized and then by telecommunication make necessary corrections or guide maintenance staff at site. Maintenance staff will require a good general knowledge of the technology and the process.

Personal incentives and interest in solving problems is important in development. The big companies must provide for the personal freedom required for a good long term result mixing work on actual problems with work on new ideas of solving specific problems or finding new solutions to certain processes. Periods of contemplation make hard concentration possible and fruitful. Brainstorming and networks for discussions are important stimuli for individuals and groups of talented people. Long term development will gain from cross-fertilization of ideas in a good company climate. Seminars on specified subjects can open eyes for new views on ones own problems. Meetings between manufacturers and process people can be fruitful for both sides. The process side can put forward a problem and the supplier can become informed about the process and may have solutions with existing methods or try to find new solutions.

Integration of information is expected to increase in the future.

Appendix 1

COMMUNICATION HISTORY

900 B.C.: China has an organized postal service for government use.

500 B.C.: Greek telegraph: trumpets, drums, shouting, beacon fires, smoke signals, mirrors.

1560: In Italy, the portable camera obscura allows precise tracing of an image.

1714: Henry Mill receives patent in England for a typewriter.

1755: Regular mail ship runs between England and the colonies.

1792: Mechanical semaphore signaler built in France.

1794: Signaling system connects Paris and Lille.

1801: Semaphore system built along the coast of France.

1810: An electro-chemical telegraph is constructed in Germany.

1818: In Sweden, Berzelius isolates selenium; its electric conductivity reacts to light.

1820: Arithmometer, forerunner of the calculator.

1821: In England, Wheatstone reproduces sound.

1823: Babbage builds a section of a calculating machine.

1823: In England, Ronalds builds a telegraph in his garden; no one is interested.

1827: In London, Wheatstone constructs a microphone.

1833: In Germany, a telegraph running nearly two miles.

1834: Babbage conceives the analytical engine, forerunner of the computer.

1837: Wheatstone and Cooke patent an electric telegraph in England.

1837: Morse exhibits an electric telegraph in the U.S.

1838: Morse exhibits an electric telegraph in the U.S.

1839: Electricity runs a printing press.

1843: Ada, Lady Lovelace publishes her Notes explaining a computer.

1844: Morse's telegraph connects Washington and Baltimore.

1845: English Channel cable.

1847: First use of telegraph as business tool.

1847: In England, Bakewell constructs a "copying telegraph."

1854: Telegraph used in Crimean War.

1854: Bourseul in France builds an experimental telephone.

1855: Printing telegraph invented in the U.S.

1857: In France, Scott's phonautograph is a forerunner of Edison's phonograph.

1858: First effort at transatlantic telegraph service fails.

1864: In Virginia, wireless electromagnetic waves are transmitted 14 miles.

1865: Atlantic cable ties Europe and U.S. for instant communication.

1872: Simultaneous transmission from both ends of a telegraph wire.

1872: Wood pulp will be the source of paper, thanks to Swedish sulfite process.

1873: Maxwell publishes theory of radio waves.

1873: In Ireland, May uses selenium to send a signal through the Atlantic cable.

1875: In the U.S., Carey designs a selenium mosaic to transmit a picture.

1876: Bell invents the telephone.

1878: The Cathode Ray Tube, CRT, is invented by the English chemist Crookes.

1878: The dynamic microphone is invented in the U.S. and Germany.

1880: Edison invents the electric light.

1883: Edison stumbles onto "Edison effect"; basis of broadcast tubes.

1884: In Germany, Nipkow scanning disc, early version of television.

1884: People can now make long distance phone calls.

1884: Electric tabulator is introduced.

1887: Berliner gets music from a flat disc stamped out by machine.

1888: Heinrich Hertz proves the existence of radio waves.

1889: Herman Hollerith counts the population with punch cards.

1889: Strowger, Kansas City undertaker, invents automatic telephone exchange.

1894: Marconi invents wireless telegraphy.

1896: Electric power is used to run a paper mill.

1896: X-ray photography.

1901: Marconi sends a radio signal across the Atlantic.

1902: U.S. Navy installs radio telephones aboard ships.

1902: Photoelectric scanning can send and receive a picture.

1904: Fleming invents the diode to improve radio communication.

1907: In Russia, Rosing develops theory of television.

1907: In Russia, Rosing develops theory of television.

1914: First transcontinental telephone call.

1919: Flip-flop circuit invented; will help computers to count.

1923: A picture, broken into dots, is sent by wire.

1926: Baird demonstrates an electro-mechanical TV system.

1926: Bell Telephone Labs transmit film by television.

1928: Baird invents a video disc to record television.

1928: In an experiment, television crosses the Atlantic.

1928: IBM adopts the 80-column punched card.

1935: All-electronic VHF television comes out of the lab.

1936: Alan Turing's "On Computable Numbers" describes a general purpose computer.

1937: Stibitz of Bell Labs invents the electrical digital calculator.

1937: Pulse Code Modulation points the way to digital transmission.

1938: Baird demonstrates live TV in color.

1939: Regular TV broadcasts begin.

1941: Zuse's Z3 is the first computer controlled by software.

1942: Atanasoff, Berry build the first electronic digital computer.

1944: Harvard's Mark I, first digital computer, put in service.

1946: Pennsylvania's ENIAC heralds the modern electronic computer.

1947: The transistor is invented, will replace vacuum tubes.

1949: Whirlwind at MIT is the first real time computer.

1949: Magnetic core computer memory is invented.

1951: Computers are sold commercially.

1952: EDVAC takes computer technology a giant leap forward.

1955: Tests begin to communicate via fiber optics.

1957: FORTRAN becomes the first high-level language.

1959: The microchip is invented.

1962: The minicomputer arrives.

1963: PDP-8 becomes the first popular minicomputer.

1968: The RAM microchip reaches the market.

1971: Intel builds the microprocessor, "a computer on a chip."

1972: Digital television comes out of the lab.

1976: Apple I.

1981: The IBM PC.

1981: The laptop computer is introduced.

1981: The first mouse pointing device.

1983: Cellular phone network starts in U.S.

1984: Apple Macintosh, IBM PC AT.

1984: The 32-bit microprocessor.

1994: After 25 years, U.S. government privatizes Internet management.

Time-line of events by Irving Fang (copyright)

For more details see Internet references or search on Internet for commline

Appendix 2

COMMUNICATION AND COMPUTER HISTORY

Appendix A3

COMPUTER HISTORY

In more words the history can be told as in "comphista" (1997 MacroCom) from which the main paragraphs are reiterated here

The first human being to record numbers in a storage medium may have been a Sumerian accountant somewhere in the lower Mesopotamian river valley about 3200 B.C. using the sexagesimal numbering system based on the numbers 6 and 10. The discovery of arithmetic brought the Sumerians tangible benefits including the ability to numerically model the products of their economy, and their commerce grew making Mesopotamia the crater of Western civilization.

The earliest known computing instrument is the ABACUS, which was invented by the Chinese and which has been in use for over 2,000 years. It consists of a frame in which parallel wires with beads are strung.

 A user moves the beads on the wires to perform all primary arithmetical functions according to a complex set of rules which must be memorized and executed by the human user.

The first automatic COMPUTING MACHINE was created by Blaise Pascal in 1642. Designed only to add numbers for tax information purposes, it worked by the user moving dials to activate a mechanical calculating engine.

In 1671, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented a machine that was capable of both addition and multiplication, which was done by adding numbers and then shifting and adding again.  The stepped gear mechanism that Leibniz introduced in 1694 has been used up through the 20th century.

In 1812, Charles Babbage, working as a professor of mathematics at the university in Cambridge, England advanced the idea of an automatic mechanical calculating device. Babbage realized that the human function of calculating even the most complex mathematical problems could often be broken down into a series of much smaller routines that a machine could potentially solve.

After obtaining financial assistance from the British government, Babbage started construction of a full-scale difference engine in 1823.  It was designed to be powered by steam and fully "automatic" in both calculating and printing output tables.  It was controlled by a fixed instruction program that executed only in precise linear sequence.  This difference engine, although of limited practicality, was a great conceptual advance.

His new idea was the construction of a general-purpose, fully programmable automatic mechanical counting computer.  Babbage called his machine an "analytical engine."  Babbage's design for this device specified a parallel decimal computer operating on numbers (words) of 50 decimal digits.This device had a storage capacity (memory) of 1,000 such numbers.

The analytical engine was to use punched cards, and was to operate "automatically" by steam power.  It would require only one attendant and it would perform arithmetic.  Babbage's analytical engine was never completed, but it was the first real model of the modern computer. However, the dream of a general purpose programmable computer then vanished for nearly 100 years.

In 1820, Charles Xavier Thomas (Tomas of Colmar) developed the first commercial mechanical desktop calculator.  It was capable of performing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Around 1848, George Boole, an English mathematician conceived a basic set of postulates (rules) describing the true-false statements of logic, and stated these in algebraic terms, which became known as Boolean Algebra, or Digital Algebra, which could manipulate binary (0/1) input and output variables.

Boolean Algebra which manipulated OR, AND, or NOT relationships would ultimately enable the analysis and design of practical digital computer systems, although it would take until 1938 before Boole's important discoveries would become the foundation for all modern computer logic circuits.

In 1883, Thomas Edison discovered electronic conduction, which made electricity possible. In 1888, Heinrich Hertz discovered radio waves.  Electricity became the key to the coming revolution in electronics and communication.

The Westinghouse Manufacturing Company, founded by George Westinghouse, installed the first alternating-current (AC) electrical power system in 1886 and fought to establish it as the standard in lieu of the early direct current (DC) system established by General Electric (GE).  In 1896, these companies pooled their patents and agreed on the AC standard in America.

Alexander Graham Bell's two key patents on the telephone, taken out in 1876 and 1877, became the foundation of American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), which Bell organized in Massachusetts in 1877.  The telegraph was the first electrical telecommunications device.

In 1890, Herman Hollerith and James Powers, working for the U.S. Census Bureau, developed counting machines that could read information on stacks of paper cards that had been punched with holes and then calculate results from this information without further human intervention.

During the decade of the 1930s, John V. Atanasoff, working as a professor of Physics at Iowa State College created a simple vacuum-tube device that took computer concepts well beyond the existing relay switch devices.  In 1973, a U. S. patent for this was granted to the successors of John V. Atanasoff.

Between 1935 and 1940, the German scientist Konrad Zuse, working in Berlin was doing the most advanced research on using electric relays as ON/OFF controls that would act as a BINARY (0 and 1) counter mechanism.  In 1941, he built the first computer that used the binary process using electrical relays, and then built the first vacuum tube digital computer system.

Alan Turing first proposed his theoretical "Turing Machine" at Cambridge University in 1936.  Turing's concepts for an "intelligent" machine based on Boolean logic laid the foundation for what was to become modern computing.

Starting in 1942 efforts in the U. S. centered around the work being done by J. Presper Eckert, John W. Mauchly, and their associates at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.  They started building a "high-speed" electronic computer to meet the needs of the U. S. Armed Forces.  Eckert and Mauchly called their machine an "Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator."  It became known simply as ENIAC.

The size of its numerical word was 10 decimal digits, and it could multiply two such numbers at the rate of 300 results per second, by finding the value of each product from a multiplication table stored in its memory.  The ENIAC was about 1,000 times faster than the prior generation of relay computers.

The ENIAC used 18,000 standard vacuum tubes, occupied 167sq. m. (1,800sq. ft.) of floor space, and consumed about 180,000 watts of electrical power.  It had punched card input and output and arithmetically had 1 multiplier, 1 divider-square rooter, and 20 adders using decimal "ring counters" acting as

The executable instructions comprising the Operating System and an application program were held in the separate units of ENIAC, which were plugged together to form a route through the machine for the flow of computations.

These connections had to be separately rerouted for each different problem, as did resetting function tables and switches.  Thus, the operation of ENIAC was controlled by a hardware "wire-your-own" instruction technique which was inconvenient and inflexible, yet it proved a machine could be programmable.

In 1945, intrigued by the ENIAC computer, the mathematician John Von Neumann began an analytical study of computation that proved that a computer could have a simple, fixed physical structure and yet be able to execute any kind of computation using programmed control without making changes in hardware.

In early 1948, at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, Alan Turing delivered the first truly programmable digital computer, which he defined as a "universal machine that can do any task that can be described in symbols."  Thus, Alan Turing was the first to realize that the computer could perfectly execute human LOGIC so long as that logic could be expressed to the computer in a language it could reliably interpret. Turing's concepts set the stage for the development of SOFTWARE that would embody human thinking.

IBM introduced its first true computer in 1951, five years after the ENIAC made its debut. Thomas Watson, Jr., son of IBM founder, Thomas Watson, Sr., led the push into computers at IBM.  He said "it was the beginning of the end for IBM if it did not get into the computer business and let go of obsolete tabulating machines."

The great brilliance of IBM under Thomas Watson, Sr. centered around its remarkable successes in selling and servicing equipment.  IBM's greatest asset was a sales force in business equipment that no other company could match.  The Remington-Rand UNIVAC was more technologically advanced than IBM's first computer, but that also became one of UNIVAC's key marketing problems.  The UNIVAC used magnetic tape for storage, while the IBM computers fit directly into IBM's large installed base of existing punched card storage equipment.  IBM's machines made it easy for the customer to transition to computers.

In 1953, IBM introduced its 650 series of computers and sold 1,000 that year through its sales force to new customers.  Thomas Watson, Sr. said "nothing happens until something is sold," and the IBM sales people went all out to break prior sales records.  The 650 was the first mass-produced computer and the first commercially successful computer.  By 1958, IBM was unquestionably the largest computer company and held a 75% market share in computing.

In 1960, lithography of conductive circuit boards began to replace wires. Photolithography made it possible to build resistors and capacitors into the circuitry by photographic means as printed circuits.

In 1961, U. S. President John Kennedy declared the "space race" on, and the goal was to be the first to land a man on the moon.  NASA used the integrated circuit to build the first Apollo space-crafts, and the Pentagon used it extensively in rocket and missile development. The Integrated Circuit (IC), which in 1960 had cost $1,000 for a version with 10 transistors, would very quickly come down in cost and increase rapidly in power.  Robert Noyce compared the importance of the IC and the photolithography process that made it possible to the printing press, as this new IC chip could be mass-produced.

A new class of computer emerged largely through the innovations of Digital Equipment Corporation and became known as the MINICOMPUTER.  These midsize machines could perform many of the functions of the mainframe, but cost considerably less and so could be used for "less important" tasks and "departmental" computing in companies.  The DEC PDP-8 started this movement in the mid 1960s and became very popular with DEC's introduction of the PDP-11.  IBM also introduced smaller computers such as the System 1, 2, 32, 34, 36, and 38, while continuing to make its mainframes much more powerful.

In 1968, Intel Corporation was founded by Gerald E. Moore, Andrew Grove and Robert Noyce, among others, in Santa Clara, California to pursue very large scale transistor integration.  In 1971, Intel engineer E. Marcian "Ted" Hoff created the Intel 4004, a general-purpose information MICROPROCESSOR that integrated 2003 transistors onto a single "intelligent" chip of silicon.

The 4-bit 4004 was designed for the Busicom 1141-PF Calculator, but could do much more. It was the first MICROCOMPUTER, which simply is a VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) computer.  Micro comes the Greek word for small.

Appendix 4

Operating Systems and Programming tools

The first useful Intel 8080-based microcomputer was the IMSAI 8080.  It was aimed at small business users and had a floppy disk drive and used the CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) Operating System (OS).  CP/M was developed for the Intel 8080 by Dr. Gary Kildall while he was working at Intel.

CP/M was based on the IBM PL/1 programming language that ran on IBM's S/360 mainframes.  In 1975, Dr. Kildall and his wife Dorothy Kildall founded Intergalactic Digital Research in Monterey, California to develop and market CP/M as the first microprocessor Operating System. CP/M required only about 4 KB of RAM and established the .COM executive and an API (Application Program Interface) program "socket".

By 1976, Gary Kildall changed the name of his company to Digital Research, and Bill Gates and Paul Allen changed Traf-O-Data's name to Microsoft.  As Digital Research worked on developing its CP/M operating system, Microsoft focused on programming languages for computers built around Intel and Zilog processor chips running Digital Research's CP/M Operating System.

MOS Technology introduced its MC6501C and MC6502 CPU microprocessor chips in 1976.  Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Palo Alto, California created the Apple I computer using the 6502 CPU.  In 1977, the Apple II debuted at the Homebrew Computing Club.  The MOS Technology 6502 made it into many computers, including the Apple, Commodore PET, and Atari.  The Motorola 6800, which is often confused with the MOS 6502, went into the RS-Tandy CoCo (Color Computer), and it was not until Steve Jobs created the Apple Lisa in 1981 that Apple started using Motorola 68000 CPUs.

IBM had decided to make its first computer based on the Intel microprocessor and in late 1980, IBM approached Microsoft with a request that Microsoft design a version of BASIC for its new IBM Personal Computer.  IBM needed an operating system for the new PC. They intended to use the Digital Research CP/M, but Gates and Allen bought the rights to Patterson's 86-DOS for about $50,000 and made a deal with IBM in November 1980 to provide it as the operating system along with Microsoft BASIC.  On August 12, 1981 IBM introduced its new IBM PC using Microsoft DOS 1.0 which IBM called PC-DOS.

Intel was designing the 80286 successor to the 8086, and in 1984 IBM was the first to introduce an 80286 computer with its IBM PC AT.  This computer had the first 16-bit bus to interconnect its parts which established the system known as Industry Standard Architecture (ISA).  Its operating system was the new IBM/Microsoft DOS 3.0.  The PC AT became an instant success.

IBM, however, had not made an exclusive contract with either Intel or Microsoft for the key parts which made up the IBM PC the X86 microprocessor, and DOS (CP/M) operating system.  Compaq and others quickly offered clone PCs.

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