Greetings to all,

We have GE Frame 5 Gas Turbines run by Mark V (IDOS) control system. We would like to check if the running values of constants (RAM) are the same as CONST_Q.SRC. We used command "constchk", but it did not work. It gives "Bad command" message. It seems that the procedure was written for Windows-run Mark V. How to find out the correct command for IDOS ?

 

You are correct. There is no comparable IDOS command for CONSTCHK.EXE. The only way to see what is in Mark* V RAM is to use the Control Constant Adjust Display. And there is no way to determine what is in EEPROM. Many of the Control Constants in the attachment you provided are modified by the CSP during operation—an extremely poor programming practice that persists to this day in Mark* IVe, unfortunately. And it causes a LOT of confusion and discussion and finger pointing.

Manually checking Control Constants in early Mark* V panels is excruciating and mind-numbing. Especially since many of the Control Constants on a Frame 5 aren’t even physically used the CSP for a Mark V, especially if it has conventional combustors (somewhere between 40% and 60% of Control Constants in CONST_Q.SRC are not used for a typical non DLN-I Frame 5).

Because of the way Control Constants can exist in so many places and formats in the Mark* V system (especially if there are multiple operator interfaces) it can be very difficult to get everything to “agree”—especially with the CSP writing to some Control Constants.

Sorry the news wasn’t better. It can take many, many hours and lots and lots of screen captures to perform this analysis-comparison with an <I> when it’s so easy with a GE Mark* V HMI.

 

You are correct. There is no comparable IDOS command for CONSTCHK.EXE. The only way to see what is in Mark* V RAM is to use the Control Constant Adjust Display. And there is no way to determine what is in EEPROM. Many of the Control Constants in the attachment you provided are modified by the CSP during operation—an extremely poor programming practice that persists to this day in Mark* IVe, unfortunately. And it causes a LOT of confusion and discussion and finger pointing.

Manually checking Control Constants in early Mark* V panels is excruciating and mind-numbing. Especially since many of the Control Constants on a Frame 5 aren’t even physically used the CSP for a Mark V, especially if it has conventional combustors (somewhere between 40% and 60% of Control Constants in CONST_Q.SRC are not used for a typical non DLN-I Frame 5).

Because of the way Control Constants can exist in so many places and formats in the Mark* V system (especially if there are multiple operator interfaces) it can be very difficult to get everything to “agree”—especially with the CSP writing to some Control Constants.

Sorry the news wasn’t better. It can take many, many hours and lots and lots of screen captures to perform this analysis-comparison with an <I> when it’s so easy with a GE Mark* V HMI.

Thanks a lot for your feedback. I was generating 'as running' files, and one command was different (MS_XREF instead of SEQDOCMT), so I thought this command was different too.

 

Yes; there are several differences in the executable files between the <I> and the GE Mark V HMI.

 

The old DOS based machine do not build a PATH to the executables. PATH is a DOS command.

I do not remember the PATH on the old IDOS machines to ge .exe files

The bad command response is because you are not in the same directory as the executable file.

A properly setup PATH will allow dos to find the executable from C: through the known path.

From the root of C: try the following command.
dir c: const*.* /s

If the command exe file is found is will list the directory that it is contained in.

Then us CD command to go to that directory and execute the command

I started on DOS 3.1 many years ago. All commands are available on the internet for research.

PATH, DIR, CD

For instance this is path for a windows 11 machine.

C:\Users\David>path
PATH=C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;;d:\Program Files (x86)\NTP\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files\dotnet\;C:\Program Files\PuTTY\;C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;

When a command exe file is typed into the command line. ALL of the paths listed above will be checked to find the exe file to execute.

Otherwise. Bad Command

I hope this is not to confusing.

 

If anyone wants to know what the PATH is on an <I>, just type the following command at any command prompt:

PATH

followed by pressing the ENTER key, and voíla! The PATH that is created during boot-up will be displayed. It's pretty short because the early PATH statements were limited in total number of characters. I'm pretty sure the path contains G:\EXEC, because many executables/programs which can be run from the command prompt of an <I> in any directory will run just by typing the executable/command name.

I'm also pretty sure than CONSTCHK.EXE will not be found in G:\EXEC on an <I>. As far as I know, it's a GE Mark* HMI command that won't run on an <I>.

So, typing CONSTCHK at the command prompt of an <I> will yield the response "Bad command or file name" because there is no CONSTCHK.EXE in the PATH (and not in G:\EXEC).

If you want to know if CONSTCHK.EXE exists in G:\EXEC, all you have to do is type the following command at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:

DIR G:\EXEC\CONSTCHK.EXE

You are telling DOS to search the directory G:\EXEC for the file name CONSTCHK.EXE. Simple as that. Or you can change to the G: drive and then to the EXEC directory and type the following command at the command prompt and then press ENTER:

DIR CONSTCHK.EXE

Or simply type CONSTCHK /? at the command prompt of the G:\EXEC directory and press ENTER. If the file exists, it will display a Help screen for CONSTCHK.EXE with some instructions about how to use the executable and any "switches" (options) available to use it.

 

You are correct. There is no comparable IDOS command for CONSTCHK.EXE. The only way to see what is in Mark* V RAM is to use the Control Constant Adjust Display. And there is no way to determine what is in EEPROM. Many of the Control Constants in the attachment you provided are modified by the CSP during operation—an extremely poor programming practice that persists to this day in Mark* IVe, unfortunately. And it causes a LOT of confusion and discussion and finger pointing.

Manually checking Control Constants in early Mark* V panels is excruciating and mind-numbing. Especially since many of the Control Constants on a Frame 5 aren’t even physically used the CSP for a Mark V, especially if it has conventional combustors (somewhere between 40% and 60% of Control Constants in CONST_Q.SRC are not used for a typical non DLN-I Frame 5).

Because of the way Control Constants can exist in so many places and formats in the Mark* V system (especially if there are multiple operator interfaces) it can be very difficult to get everything to “agree”—especially with the CSP writing to some Control Constants.

Sorry the news wasn’t better. It can take many, many hours and lots and lots of screen captures to perform this analysis-comparison with an <I> when it’s so easy with a GE Mark* V HMI.

There is a way to determine what is in EEPROM. Hit Storage Update in the constants adjust tool, now what's in RAM is burned to EEPROM. After that you can use the UP option in the EEPROM tool to pull the same constants up into the AP1 file, EEPROM UP T1 R CONST. After that you have to reconcile the SRC file by hand. No need to run mk5make because you've already pulled the const up using the EEPROM tool.

 

Uploading the Control Constants will store them in a .DAT file on an <I> (a .AP1 file on a GE Mark* V HMI)--and they're in an Intel hex format, which is not easily readable with a text editor. So, there's no easy way to view what's in the uploaded file--or in the EEPROM.

 

Uploading the Control Constants will store them in a .DAT file on an <I> (a .AP1 file on a GE Mark* V HMI)--and they're in an Intel hex format, which is not easily readable with a text editor. So, there's no easy way to view what's in the uploaded file--or in the EEPROM.

I scrolled right past <I>. So wouldn't the answer be 1. storage update to burn RAM to EEPROM 2 EEPROM UP T1 R CONST(or any known good core if TMR) 3. grab coffee. The Mk V runs in real time out of RAM, so what's in RAM had better be correct.

 

If the .DAT (and the .AP1) file that is uploaded from the EEPROM is in hexadecimal format what viewer/reader would you use to see the contents in ASCII text format to compare to the.SRC file values?