Early History of EPICS EPICS Seminar/Workshop Raja Ramanna Centre For Advanced Technology Indore India January Presented by: Marty Kraimer

January 2009EPICS Seminar RRCAT2 Reference See  EPICS home page  Then Documents  Then General Description  Then EPICS: A Control System Software Co-Development Success Story  Along the way There may be other interesting documents But many are out of date

January 2009EPICS Seminar RRCAT3 1980s Ground Test Accelerator  LANL project started mid 1980s  Star Wars Project BTSC: Beam Telescope Control System  Control System for Diagnostic System for GTA  Installed for testing at Argonne National Lab in about 1987 or 1988  GUI Operator Interface (DEC Windows on VaxStation)‏ May have been first in Accelerator Community Demonstrated at ICALEPCS 87 GTACS : Ground Test Accelerator Control System  Last half of 1980s.  Mike Thuot was the group leader  Original GUI was from BTSC. But project to replace with X windows.  IOC concept was from Bob Dalesio Based on experience with industrial control system (D3)‏  Channel Access (Jeff Hill) evolved from BTSC to support GTACS

January 2009EPICS Seminar RRCAT4 1980s Continued Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Lab  Conceptual Design  In late 1989 permission to start construction Controls Group for APS  Martin Knott was the control group leader Conceptual Design and beginning of construction  Was aware of BTSC and GTACS  Sent Marty Kraimer to learn about GTACS summer 1989  At ICALEPCS 89 Discussed possible collaboration Marty Kraimer's first assignment was:  learn GTACS  Explain it to Controls Group Meeting between LANL and APS controls groups  Big dispute was GUI – X windows only or Motif  Decided to Collaborate

January 2009EPICS Seminar RRCAT5 Early 1990s GTACS evolves into EPICS  Extendable record/device/driver support GTACS hard coded connection to record and device support  To add a record type required several code changes  Same for new device support  RSET, DSET, and DRVET solved this problem  All processing was synchronous Very difficult to support GPIB and serial devices LBL, SSCL, and CEBAF (Now Jefferson Lab) join collaboration  Steve Lewis's Controls Group at LBL  Don Dohan's Linac Control Group at Super Conducting Super Collider Later SSC decided to use EPICS for all SSC Accelerators Later the SSC was canceled. Sigh!!  CEBAF replaced home grown control system while under construction DESY (Germany) joined collaboration. First outside USA  Matthias Clausen Control Group Leader Conventional Facilities  Was using D3 system. Saw how EPICS was similar

January 2009EPICS Seminar RRCAT6 Commercialization ANL, LANL, DOE (USA Department of Energy)‏  Signed a five year agreement with three companies  Based on release 3.8  EPICS free for non-profit organizations. Must sign license agreement  One company made major additions and provided control system Turn-key system  Installed Hardware  Provided custom code, databases, etc  Trained operators When five year agreement was complete  Decided to make EPICS open source  It took time to get permission from DOE At end of five year agreement  More than 100 license agreements were signed  Since EPICS is open source do not know how many users.

January 2009EPICS Seminar RRCAT7 EPICS Evolution during 1990s Early versions of EPICS  OPI Workstation Originally only VAX Later only SUNOS Workstations  IOC VME systems with vxWorks operating system Processor  Originally only 68K The 68K SUN workstation compiler was the compiler  Later powerPC supported OSI (Operating System Independence)‏  This distinguishes the 3.14 releases from 3.13  Both CA clients and IOCs are now supported on many platforms EPICS IOC modules  Continuing to evolve EPICS Applications (Client based)‏  Continuing to evolve