AVCO/Textron Systems

Processors: 11/44, 8085, 8086
Building automation and auxiliary services for King Khaled International Airport (Saudi Arabia). System contains nine PDP 11/44s, 378 8086-based computers, and 320 8085-based security processors, collectively monitoring and controlling over 36,000 points.

Eastman Kodak Company

Processor: 68020
Quality control system monitoring photographic film density. Includes film motion control, automatic recognition of film density steps, and custom IEEE-488 bus interface.

NASA — Goddard Space Flight Center

Processor: 80386
Control of 50-foot long, six-joint arm for Space Shuttle simulator. Extensive math routines convert two three-axis joystick commands into required joint velocities in six different co-ordinate systems. Entire system developed by one programmer in five weeks.

Processor: UT69R000
Multitasking operating system, Forth language compiler, and libraries for UT69R000 radiation-hardened microprocessor used in Space Shuttle instrumentation.

Processor: 87C196KC16
Development of the Forth-based Small Payload Accomodations Interface Module (SPAIM), which interfaces the Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SSBUV) instrument to the Space Shuttle's avionic systems. The SSBUV instrument is used to calibrate ozone-measuring instruments aboard NOAA satellites. (See application note "Interfacing SSBUV, a Scientific Instrument, to the Space Shuttle" for details.)

Owens-Corning Fiberglas

Processor: 6809, 68000, PCs
Owens-Corning has used Forth for many years as the basic firmware in its distributed industrial controllers. These controllers perform a wide variety of functions, managing winders, weighing devices, etc., used in the manufacture of various fiberglass products. Plants in Korea and Mexico also use FORTH, Inc.'s EXPRESS Industrial Control Software to provide supervisory control and reporting functions.

Saturn Corp. (division of GM)

Processors: Z-80, 80386
Distributed HVAC system for entire Saturn automobile assembly plant, controlling over two hundred 40 hp. heating - cooling - humidifying units (with Z-80s) over a two-tier network using PCs as text and graphical system monitors. Outside air sensors provide inputs for intelligent set-point control and economic use of gas heating and chilled-water cooling systems.

University of Minnesota

Processor: 80486
PC-based system for telescope control and data taking (over IEEE-488 bus), data analysis and graphics display. Includes provision for remote observing, using a custom protocol to multiplex packets from three independent data streams over a single telephone line.

VertexRSI (division of General Dynamics C4 Systems)

Processors: 68K, ColdFire
Software for custom satellite tracking receivers . Includes frequency synthesizer control, remote RS-232 command port, vacuum fluorescent graphics display.

Commercial Food Processor – extruder

One company has implemented neural networks to tune control loops in a complex extruder application in a food processing plant. The system architecture involves a Modicon AT-984 plugged into a FactoryMate bus, the reverse of the more customary method of plugging a DOS co-processor into a PLC rack.

Commercial Food Processor – precise measures

A food processing company used EXPRESS as a subsystem in a new processing line featuring MODICON PLCs and a large DCS. The Forth-based system is responsible for handling the "minor ingredients" such as seasonings. Dispensing minor ingredients is often a troublesome component of food processing systems, because the quantities are small and must be metered out quite accurately. The Forth software was selected for this critical function because of its precise timing capabilities.