PC vs. PLC in 1997

    May 9, 2012

    As I assemble our 15th anniversary issue, which looks back and excerpts our content over the years, I reread the first issue of Control Design. The leading industrial PC technology of the time had 200 MHz Pentium processors, 512 MB RAM, powered by Windows NT.

    A PLC supplier scornfully asks, "Can a $7,000-10,000 PC system survive delivery?"

    As I assemble our 15th anniversary issue, which looks back and excerpts our content over the years, I reread the first issue of Control Design. The leading industrial PC technology of the time had 200 MHz Pentium processors, 512 MB RAM, powered by Windows NT.

    A PLC supplier scornfully asks, "Can a $7,000-10,000 PC system survive delivery?"

    A PC supporter returns fire: "A 200 MHz Pentium performs 15-20 times faster than hard PLCs. With the rapid development of PC hardware, users can upgrade system performance more quickly, as well as scale up more easily."

    Oh, yeah? "I can get replacement parts for a 10-year-old PLC, but good luck finding parts for a five-year-old PC," counters another.

    Nice to see so much has changed in 15 years......or not......

    Continue Reading

    Sponsored Recommendations

    Keep your production line moving. Learn how ingress protection extends motor life, cuts failures, and improves uptime in harsh food processing conditions.
    Learn how to evolve your machine design and engineering capabilities with real-world, practical use cases of ML and GenAI.
    Discover how IO-Link-enabled piezoelectric vibration sensors are transforming machine health monitoring offering deeper insights, fewer installation hurdles, and smarter maintenance...
    Get some peace of mind and a higher level of protection into your machine designs with a comprehensive guide to machine safety. From the evolution of integrated safety logic to...

    Latest from Home

    Most Read

    Sponsored