Automation List:

In the industrial automation business, we should expect that, in the future, virtually all industrial I/O products and processes will have significantly expanded embedded intelligence and connectivity.

Apply the 3 technology laws to see how simple applications will extend automation methods from factory and process controls to a much broader range of applications.

My new article has been published by AutomationTechies.com April 2002. Read it on the web at: "http://www.automationtechies.com/sitepages/art465.php":http://www.automationtechies.com/sitepages/art465.php

Cheers::

jim
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Jim Pinto
email : [email protected]
web: www.JimPinto.com
San Diego, CA., USA
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Jim, while Moore's "law" has some observational validation (it's measurable in MIPS, FIPS etc.), the other two are pretty much fuzzy headed notions. What is "total bandwidth of communications systems" or "the value of a network"? These are not easily defined or measured things. Even measuring MIPS and FIPS is fraught with problems. The other two concepts are simply too fuzzy to be observable or refuted.

You're also overlooking the events going on under our noses this very minute: Security holes, hacking, and phreaking. The very tools that make this "revolution" possible are also being used against us. This is Isaac Newton's Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (My apologies to Sir Newton).

Many SCADA and control system operators are getting cold feet when it comes to the internet. The few online systems out there present some amazingly lucrative and high profile targets for hackers to wreak all sorts of damage.

You want prognostication? I'll give you a prognostication: Unless and until designers, integrators, and operators get over their Microsoft-can-do-no-wrong fixation and get serious about security, this essay will look as silly as a 1970s episode of Dr. Who.

 

Jake Brodsky <[email protected]> wrote :

>while Moore's "law" has some observational validation
>the other two are pretty much fuzzy headed notions.

Jim Pinto:
Gilder's Law (bandwidth) does have observational validation (qualitative and quantitative) - the actual graphs show exponential growth.

Metcalfe's law (value of the network) is not as easy to demonstrate - but the significant useage and impact of the Internet (lots of computers connected to each other) within a very short time is validation indeed.

Jake continues :
>You're also overlooking the events going on under our noses
>this very minute: Security holes, hacking, and phreaking.
>The very tools that make this "revolution" possible are also
>being used against us.

Jim Pinto :
I am NOT overlooking the counter-pressures you mention. Every action brings re-action and limitations. The hacking and phreaking has always existed, and will continue to be overcome - inserting an irrelevant slowing-dpwn of the technology laws.

Jake :
>Many SCADA and control system operators are getting cold
>feet when it comes to the internet.

Jim Pinto:
Banking and finance is done on the Internet - with a value MUCH MORE than any process-control or automation system. Those who get "cold feet" are the conservatives who will be left behind.

Jake :
>I'll give you a prognostication: Unless and until designers,
>integrators, and operators get over their Microsoft-can-do-no-wrong
>fixation and get serious about security, this essay will look as silly
>as a 1970s episode of Dr. Who.

Jim Pinto:

Sorry, Jake - you're being narrow-minded. You need lessons in Marketing and Economics.

Microsoft will grow or fall, based on its own merits. Conservatives who follow Microsoft blindly do so at their own risk. The visionaries lead the way (take risks); the early-adopters have less risk, but more reward; the mainstream follows - and the laggard resist (some still using PLCs and relays).

Cheers:
jim
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Jim Pinto
email : [email protected]
web: www.JimPinto.com
San Diego, CA., USA
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Jake Brodsky:
> >while Moore's "law" has some observational validation the other two are
> >pretty much fuzzy headed notions.

> Jim Pinto:
...
> Metcalfe's law (value of the network) is not as easy to demonstrate -

Actually, I doubt Metcalfe's law. Value of a network is more than linear, but it'd have to be less than quadratic.

Quadratic value would have to mean that (on average) for each individual user the value of the network is linear - in other words, that there's just as much value for me added with the millionth user as with the tenth.

I'll settle for O(n log n), but merely as something between the two; I've no basis for it.


> Microsoft will grow or fall, based on its own merits.

Well, let's hope so, anyway.

Jiri
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Jiri Baum <[email protected]> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
MAT LinuxPLC project --- http://mat.sf.net --- Machine Automation Tools