The Microsoft NT operating system

The Microsoft NT operating system is showing up more and more in production environments. Operators are discovering the reliability and versatility of NT, and plant managers are finding out that it is becoming more affordable. One benefit of NT is that it is very robust. Well written applications rarely crash, and, if they do, they rarely take other tasks with them. The main reason for the NT stability is the Hardware Abstraction Layer, or HAL.

When designing NT, Microsoft decided that it would be good to completely separate the PC hardware from individual user programs. That means that where a programmer could simply open up a serial or parallel port in earlier versions of Windows, NT now controls all access to these devices. Older versions of Windows encouraged users to hack out some solution to a communications problem, and if the programmer didn't do every thing exactly right (or get very lucky) he unknowingly created a very dangerous problem that may not show itself until a much later date.

The NT robustness came at the price of no longer being able to quickly get a piece of new hardware running under NT. Each specific device now requires an NT Kernel Mode Device Driver written specifically for the equipment. While this method may delay development of a system on an NT platform, it does ensure much more reliable software.

A while ago, ASI was faced with a particular hardware device that was not supported under NT, and the device manufacturer had no intention of coming out with an NT driver, at least not in the near term. It was at that point that ASI took the steps to cultivate the in-house knowledge to be able to produce our own NT Device Drivers when required. That first project was fairly difficult, but the resulting driver was produced at a reasonable cost, and has performed flawlessly since installation.

Not to say that ASI wants to make its living writing NT operating system components. We just mention it to help prove our case that we don't run into obstacles that will stop our progress. How many integrators do you think that there are who can design the system, develop the operator interface, write all of the communication routines, and even write OS Device Drivers? ASI has clearly set a new standard for any company billing itself as a complete solution provider.

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