1. PLC History The true automation and industrial control took place with the arrival of the microprocessor in the early 1970s. With its dedicated I/O, hardened hardware, scanner processing and ladder logic programming, the PLC today represent the optimum way to achieve industrial control.

2. PC or PLC? In the early 1990s, many in the industry began to predict the demise of the PLC. They felt that as the power of PCs increased, such machine would eventually kill of the PLC

3. Industrial PC Although the PC has membrane-type keyboard to protect against moisture, grease, dirt, and may have an enclosed casing, it is less protected than the more rugged PLC

4. Industrial PC - Labview NI LabVIEW system design software is at the center of the National Instruments platform such as PXI. PC-Based Platform for Test, Measurement, and Control

5. PLC The PLC is built for a specific purpose. It has unique components and architecture to make it better for control. It also has software designed for a particular job. Furthermore, because it has cyclical scans that can be monitored easily, the PLC is relatively easy to diagnose and troubleshoot.

6. Potential Contender The Rasberry PI is a credit-card-sized single-board computer. The Raspberry Pi has a Broadcom BCM2835 system on a chip (SoC),[3] which includes an ARM1176JZF-S 700 MHz

7. Potential Contender The BeagleBoard or BeagleBoard black are low-power open-source hardware single- board computers. Using Linux as OS.