Workstation Consoles for SLC

A workstation console based on the DEC VAXstation GPx has been developed for the SLC control system. The three video monitors (touchpanel, color graphics display and terminal screen) of the original SLC console are replaced by four windows on the single workstation monitor, and standalone diagnostic programs may run concurrently. In order to minimize software effort and operator training, it was a design requirement that higher-level control and applications code, particularly that in the SLC Control Program, be identical whether the program executed on the MicroVAX or on the host VAX. The code for the graphics is necessarily different for the MicroVAX, as is the lower-level code used to access resources resident only in the host. A server program on the host acts as intermediary between programs running on the workstation and these resources.