3 Sep
2012
3 Sep
'12
3:19 p.m.
On 9/3/2012 2:19 PM, jimpdavis wrote:
To keep this on topic, The reduction process control system was
originally built with a Nova mini driven analog data multiplexer
fed into a Modcomp for process control. We later updated the process
control to a later model Modcomp.
A Data General Eclipse was used for production reporting. The lab used
a PDP-8 based X-ray analyzer and
the carbon plant was based on Mot 6800 boxes and Analog Devices uMac
5000 process control systems.
I was pretty disappointed the last time I visited in 95 and discovered
the eclipse had been dumped into the tip
and replaced with PC clones.
I went to the Alumax site to service a Microdata
Reality they bought and
installed. They had hired an engineering firm to make adapters to
convert sensor output to character form and login to the Reality and jam
the data into data files. It was then analyzed and formatted into
reports about the state and trends of possible monitor pollutants,
wildlife and a huge amount of environmental monitors.
The logins to the Reality system for the data retrieval were open to the
Alumax people and to the EPA as well as some other interested parties,
and reports were published, may still be of the trends from before the
site was converted. They said the site would improve environmentally,
and as it was converted to just one area for the reduction plant, and a
large are was made back into a nature preserve it looked like they had
accomplished that. I suspect they may still use pick or perhaps there
are other data collection systems in use. It was pretty advanced to do
what they did for 1979 though.