Software breathes life into the PC-based controller

Beckhoff hit upon the idea of using a PC as a controller in 1986. 25 years ago a floppy disk drive was to be integrated into the controllers with Motorola processors developed up to that point by Beckhoff. Since this task was not quite so easy to accomplish, it was decided to use the PC as the CPU, whereby the floppy disk drive was automatically included. As further developments demonstrated, the use of the PC as the CPU (Central Processing Unit) for control and Motion Control offers many more advantages: once written, the software for control, motion and human-machine interface (HMI) can simply be adopted from one processor generation to the next. As a result, the increasing performance of processors on the PC market provides the user with ever increasing performance without requiring wholesale changes to the automation software. A PC-based controller needs a PC, which functions as the CPU, and a fieldbus, with which the input and output data are read and written. However, it is the software that first breathes life into the PC.