[chbot] Simple robot programming

[jimmy allen]

you could use flow charting or structure diagraming
this is how my programaming teacher gets us to plan our code and it
gives a visual feel for how a program is going to work

On 7/1/09, Morris <skibear at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the summary and links!
>
> classicladder is interesting! Looks to be active and a lot more than a
> simple ladder logic editor/executor.
>
>
>> I don't know whether the execution engine is separated from the drawing
>> tool. The web-page was last updated in 2009, so it might still be
>> maintained.
>
>
> "It can run on little embedded platforms (no GTK interface dependance,
> and number objects to allocate for less memory usage)." strongly implies
> that the execution engine can be used stand-alone. However I suspect it
> would not be a trivial amount of work to get it to the point I could use
> it for my own uses!
>
> Cheers
>
> On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 17:18 +1200, Stephen Irons wrote:
>
>> A PLC is just a robot used to control industrial machinery, and PLCs can
>> do a wide variety of tasks. IEC 61131-3 specifies five languages for
>> programming PLCs: Ladder Diagram (LD), Instruction List (IL), Structured
>> Text (ST), Function Block Diagram (FB) and Sequential Function Chart
>> (SFC). IL is exactly the same as LD, except using text notation rather
>> than diagrams. ST is a Pascal-like programming language and adds nothing
>> that any other imperative language can provide, and is probably not as
>> well-defined as modern languages.. FB adds the ability to incorporates
>> nested blocks of the other languages, and is very useful. SFC adds
>> state-machine like behaviour.
>>
>> The combination of LD, FB and SFC is very powerful.
>>
>> As Charles mentioned, there are at least three parts to the system: the
>> drawing tool, the compiler and the execution engine. An almost-essential
>> additional part is a debugger.
>>
>> In a previous job, I ported a (commercial) PLC execution engine to run
>> on a 2 MHz 68HC11, so a WRT-style router will certainly have the oomph
>> to do it.
>>
>> The drawing tool, compiler and debugger were Windows-hosted.
>>
>> The drawing tool included support for all five IEC 61131-3 languages.
>> The drawing tool also included software-engineering utilities such as
>> version control, documentation generation, etc.
>>
>> The compiler generated byte-codes that were loaded into the target and
>> run.
>>
>> The debugger connected via any available channel (of course, you had to
>> port the communication code), and you monitor the states of inputs,
>> outputs and variables, could set breakpoints and watchpoints in all
>> sorts of ways.
>>
>> The execution engine was very standard ANSI C, so could be ported to
>> just about anything.
>>
>> The name of the system was IsaGraf, and they are still around. The whole
>> system cost a lot, but was far cheaper to buy than to develop ourselves.
>>
>> As far as I know, there are no Linux-hosted tools that do all of this.
>> However, there are a number of places to look:
>>
>> http://membres.lycos.fr/mavati/classicladder/ includes LD and SFC. I
>> don't know whether the execution engine is separated from the drawing
>> tool. The web-page was last updated in 2009, so it might still be
>> maintained.
>>
>> http://mat.sourceforge.net/ looks interesting, but they don't seem to be
>> very active: last updated 2006.
>>
>> Stephen Irons
>>
>>
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