Patent ID: 6138174
Filing Date: 2000-10-24
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
An industrial control system executing utility programs intended to generate graphical representations of the data of the industrial control system when executed on a computer, the industrial control system comprising:(a) an I/O module providing electrical connections with a controlled process;(b) a peripheral-computer having a graphics display and a user input device and executing a communications program to transmit data from the user input computer and to display graphics data received from the control-computer on the graphics display;(c) a communications link;(d) a control-computer spatially removed from the peripheral-computer and having a separate bus structure therefrom and exchanging data with the peripheral-computer and the I/O module over the communications link, the control-computer including at least one processor and an electronic memory, the memory holding:(i) an operating system providing an interface between the control-computer and only programs executed on the control-computer;(ii) control data including input and output data exchanged through the I/O module with the controlled process and including the control program for processing the input and output data when executed by the processor under the operating system;(iii) a utility program executable on a stand-alone computer running the operating system, the utility program reading the control data to produce a graphic representation of the control data on a graphics display in response to input from a user input device;(iv) a shell program when executed by the processor of the control-computer simulating the stand-alone computer running the operating system to execute the utility program by receiving data from the user input device of the peripheral-computer and transmitting graphic data to the graphics display of the peripheral computer;whereby the peripheral computer does not have the operating system and whereby the utility program may be virtually executed remotely from a peripheral-computer having insufficient processing capability to run the utility program or the operating system required by the utility program.