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AssigneeThe Foxboro Company
InventorEdgar H. Bristol
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A language structure and translator specifically adapted for use in constructing computer programs for controlling chemical and physical processing. The translator converts to compilable code programs written as statements expressing control intentions or results. Each textual function and statement is expressed as a data structure which expresses the function, as configured, and the state and values most recently calculated for the relevant variables. Provision is made for treating the program structure (i.e., control connections, program order and components, etc.) as a part of the dynamic state of the application. Graphical symbols, or icons, are employed to draw the eye to critical features in the control program and to lead the eye through critical interrelationships among the several commands of a complicated control system. At the same time, the translator treats the keystrokes generating these icons as statements (i.e., commands) which define the relationships among other associated program statements (which are usually textual commands), to control the order in which the operations represented by those statements are executed.
A method of operating a computer system to form computer program code from user programmed source statements indicative of process control operations, the source statements including textual statements of process control intentions, wherein a process control intention specifies a control objective without specifying detailed, implementing calculations, each statement of process control intentions comprising (a) a representation of a regulatory function to be implemented in a process control system controlled by the computer system, (b) an identification of a dependent, control variable to be controlled within the process control system and (c) a list of independent, controlling variables to be used by the regulatory function in controlling the dependent variable, the process control system being formed and described in part by a plurality of elements, interconnections between said elements and control variables having time-variant values, and the statements of process control intentions establishing a plurality of control calculations to be performed in a sequence to be determined, such method comprising the steps of:
A method of operating a computer system responsive to user programmed source statements, called IDIOMS, indicative of process control operations, to effectuate interconnection and operation of components of a system to be controlled, each IDIOM including a statement of control intention translatable automatically into context-dependent control instructions, the method comprising the steps of:
A method of operating a computer system to form computer program code from user programmed source statements, comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.