- Email: [email protected]
ROSY in the microprocessor laboratory
50
EUROMICROReports
Captain Robert B. Fleming and Margaret E. Berry of the US Army Systems Command next presented a paper entitled "Hierarchical MultiGranular Modeling to Improve Software Performance." The authors described problems experienced in predicting execution times for a large batch transaction oriented information system under conditions of varying work load, and in evaluating the sensitivity of the system's performance to proposed software modifications. The model was employed specifically to evaluate bottlenecks in the Army's Direct Support Standard Supply System. The third paper of the Friday session was "Simulation Via Implementation with Application in Computer Communication", by Kenneth Brayer, Valerie Lafleur, and Gary Simpson, of the MITRE Corporation. The standard approach to simulating a computer network and user attributes. Mr. Brayer described their research in which the network was implemented with actual network processors, and the user attributes were simulated. This approach was applied to develop a routing algorithm for computer networks. Advantages of the approach include greater simulation accuracy and possible cost efficiency. The final paper of the Symposium was "The Data Base System Simulator (DBSS): Data Description and Data Access Capabilities", presented by Joseph D. Brownsmith of the University of Florida. In his paper, Dr. Brownsmith presented DBSS, a simulation sublanguage specifically attuned to the needs of data base designers and analysts and designers. It consists of facilities for representing logical data structures and their mapping onto address space, and data access commands which are used to simulate data base traversal. DBSS has been implemented as a system involving both PL/1 and Fortran, and has been used to model a personnel data base. The Symposium concluded with the Awards Luncheon, in which the best paper award was presented to Jan Atkin and Keith Johnston. The Ira Kay Memorial Research Grant in Computer Simulation was awarded to Dr. Malcom H. Pope, for a research proposal entitled " A model to Predict the Fracture of Cancerous Bone Tissue".
The grant presentation was made by Bea Kay. R. Dysart CoNine, the president of this Symposium was recognized for outstanding work. After the Luncheon, Victor Boyd assumed the office of President of the Symposium, Ron Huhn, Vice President, and John Comfort, Secretary/ Treasurer. John Craig Comfort
The Proceedings of the 15th Annual Simulation Symposium are available from: Annual Simulation Symposium, c/o Mr. Edward DeYoung, 130 Jay Street, Morton, Illinois 61550, USA, OR IEEE Computer Society, 10662 Los Vaqueros Circle, Los Alamitos, CA 90720, USA, Computer Society Order No. 407, OR IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA, IEEE Catalog No. 82CH1744-2, OR ACM Order Department, P.O. Box 64145, Baltimore, MD 21264, USA, ACM Order No. 577820, Non-Member Price: $25.00, Member Price: $18.75. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 71-149514. ISSN 0272-4715, 359 pages.
ROSY in the Microprocessor Laboratory ROSY, a "Robot for Systemprogramming" has been installed in Prof. J.R. Mfihlbacher's Institute for Systems Programming, Department for Informatik, at the Johannes Kepler University at Linz, Austria. ROSY, the first robot at an Austrian university, now brightens the working days of MUELAB (Microprocessor Software Laboratory). The idea of forming a Microprocessor Software Laboratory was born in 1979 and implemented in 1980. Since then students of informatics are able to take practical training courses there. Fraser G. Duncan of Bristol University initiated this development: Bristol already runs a laboratory of this
EUROMICRO Reports
kind. J.R. Mtihlbacher and F.G. Duncan collaborate closely for 12 years. ROSY is approx. 40 cm high, controlled by a microprocessor, and is capable of carrying out simple movements in six different degrees of freedom. ROSY can perform mechanical tasks by using her gripper, an elegant little arm with something like a pair of plyers at the end. See photograph. ROSY is made in England.
51
covers aspects concerning interfacing in general. Real time signals from sensors have to be acknowledged. Even at the basic level (note: not BASIC) one has to study very interesting details like controlling servomotors, steppingmotors and other devices. Additionally the little device should make students aware of the application of robots: There seems to be a great potential for robotics, especially in a small country like Austria. The use of robots has approximately doubled in the last 4 years, their use in industry could enable small series of good to be manufactured at competitive prices. d6rg R. M~ihlbacher
Third Edition of CP/M Software Index Available
Naturally now ROSY is the centre of attraction of the MUELAB, and Prof. Miihlbacher and his assistants are very proud of her. (In Austria machines of this kind are female!) At present experiments are under way to program ROSY to that she can pick up certain small items, place them on a digital scale, lift them up again and put them into different containers, depending on their weight. Experiences have shown that programming a little robot is a very effective way to teach various aspects in microcomputer-software-design. It
The third edition of the Small Systems Group's CP/M Software Index has recently been published. The most comprehensive directory of CP/M-based software to date, the Index lists 1,688 professionally supported programs, offered by 507 vendors. A brief description, the vendor's name, address, and phone number, the price, and operating system versions are shown for each package. All of the indexed programs are available for the CP/M-80 operating system and many are also available under CP/M-86, MP/M-80, MP/M-86 and Concurrent CP/M-86. The Index is organized into five major areas: Systems Programs, General Applications, Accounting Applications, Utility Applications and Industry Specific Software. These areas are broken down into 89 categories. Examples of the categories are Data Management (66 entries), Integrated Accounting Packages (54 entries), Higher Level Language Processors (105 entries), Medical Packages (30 entries) and Construction Packages (32 entries). Less obvious categories, for instance, Dairy and Cattle Programs (17 entries) and Sports (10 entries) are also indexed. In spite of the recession, the rapid growth of the software industry is shown by the fact that this edition of the Index contains more than twice as many programs and vendors as the second edition did. The second survey, conducted approximately one
EUROMICROReports
Captain Robert B. Fleming and Margaret E. Berry of the US Army Systems Command next presented a paper entitled "Hierarchical MultiGranular Modeling to Improve Software Performance." The authors described problems experienced in predicting execution times for a large batch transaction oriented information system under conditions of varying work load, and in evaluating the sensitivity of the system's performance to proposed software modifications. The model was employed specifically to evaluate bottlenecks in the Army's Direct Support Standard Supply System. The third paper of the Friday session was "Simulation Via Implementation with Application in Computer Communication", by Kenneth Brayer, Valerie Lafleur, and Gary Simpson, of the MITRE Corporation. The standard approach to simulating a computer network and user attributes. Mr. Brayer described their research in which the network was implemented with actual network processors, and the user attributes were simulated. This approach was applied to develop a routing algorithm for computer networks. Advantages of the approach include greater simulation accuracy and possible cost efficiency. The final paper of the Symposium was "The Data Base System Simulator (DBSS): Data Description and Data Access Capabilities", presented by Joseph D. Brownsmith of the University of Florida. In his paper, Dr. Brownsmith presented DBSS, a simulation sublanguage specifically attuned to the needs of data base designers and analysts and designers. It consists of facilities for representing logical data structures and their mapping onto address space, and data access commands which are used to simulate data base traversal. DBSS has been implemented as a system involving both PL/1 and Fortran, and has been used to model a personnel data base. The Symposium concluded with the Awards Luncheon, in which the best paper award was presented to Jan Atkin and Keith Johnston. The Ira Kay Memorial Research Grant in Computer Simulation was awarded to Dr. Malcom H. Pope, for a research proposal entitled " A model to Predict the Fracture of Cancerous Bone Tissue".
The grant presentation was made by Bea Kay. R. Dysart CoNine, the president of this Symposium was recognized for outstanding work. After the Luncheon, Victor Boyd assumed the office of President of the Symposium, Ron Huhn, Vice President, and John Comfort, Secretary/ Treasurer. John Craig Comfort
The Proceedings of the 15th Annual Simulation Symposium are available from: Annual Simulation Symposium, c/o Mr. Edward DeYoung, 130 Jay Street, Morton, Illinois 61550, USA, OR IEEE Computer Society, 10662 Los Vaqueros Circle, Los Alamitos, CA 90720, USA, Computer Society Order No. 407, OR IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA, IEEE Catalog No. 82CH1744-2, OR ACM Order Department, P.O. Box 64145, Baltimore, MD 21264, USA, ACM Order No. 577820, Non-Member Price: $25.00, Member Price: $18.75. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 71-149514. ISSN 0272-4715, 359 pages.
ROSY in the Microprocessor Laboratory ROSY, a "Robot for Systemprogramming" has been installed in Prof. J.R. Mfihlbacher's Institute for Systems Programming, Department for Informatik, at the Johannes Kepler University at Linz, Austria. ROSY, the first robot at an Austrian university, now brightens the working days of MUELAB (Microprocessor Software Laboratory). The idea of forming a Microprocessor Software Laboratory was born in 1979 and implemented in 1980. Since then students of informatics are able to take practical training courses there. Fraser G. Duncan of Bristol University initiated this development: Bristol already runs a laboratory of this
EUROMICRO Reports
kind. J.R. Mtihlbacher and F.G. Duncan collaborate closely for 12 years. ROSY is approx. 40 cm high, controlled by a microprocessor, and is capable of carrying out simple movements in six different degrees of freedom. ROSY can perform mechanical tasks by using her gripper, an elegant little arm with something like a pair of plyers at the end. See photograph. ROSY is made in England.
51
covers aspects concerning interfacing in general. Real time signals from sensors have to be acknowledged. Even at the basic level (note: not BASIC) one has to study very interesting details like controlling servomotors, steppingmotors and other devices. Additionally the little device should make students aware of the application of robots: There seems to be a great potential for robotics, especially in a small country like Austria. The use of robots has approximately doubled in the last 4 years, their use in industry could enable small series of good to be manufactured at competitive prices. d6rg R. M~ihlbacher
Third Edition of CP/M Software Index Available
Naturally now ROSY is the centre of attraction of the MUELAB, and Prof. Miihlbacher and his assistants are very proud of her. (In Austria machines of this kind are female!) At present experiments are under way to program ROSY to that she can pick up certain small items, place them on a digital scale, lift them up again and put them into different containers, depending on their weight. Experiences have shown that programming a little robot is a very effective way to teach various aspects in microcomputer-software-design. It
The third edition of the Small Systems Group's CP/M Software Index has recently been published. The most comprehensive directory of CP/M-based software to date, the Index lists 1,688 professionally supported programs, offered by 507 vendors. A brief description, the vendor's name, address, and phone number, the price, and operating system versions are shown for each package. All of the indexed programs are available for the CP/M-80 operating system and many are also available under CP/M-86, MP/M-80, MP/M-86 and Concurrent CP/M-86. The Index is organized into five major areas: Systems Programs, General Applications, Accounting Applications, Utility Applications and Industry Specific Software. These areas are broken down into 89 categories. Examples of the categories are Data Management (66 entries), Integrated Accounting Packages (54 entries), Higher Level Language Processors (105 entries), Medical Packages (30 entries) and Construction Packages (32 entries). Less obvious categories, for instance, Dairy and Cattle Programs (17 entries) and Sports (10 entries) are also indexed. In spite of the recession, the rapid growth of the software industry is shown by the fact that this edition of the Index contains more than twice as many programs and vendors as the second edition did. The second survey, conducted approximately one