Short news and technical details
Technical Article
Device Description Language
When I published an article about the device description language in Elektronik, issue 18, of September 3, 1991, some colleagues from the technical world had a great time with a look at the
ISO-OSI model. Nobody laughs at device descriptions anymore.
I would never have dreamed at the time that this new technology would one day become an international standard.
In the meantime, the device description is state of the art, which was also worth an entry in Wikipedia.
The Device Description Language is integrated in several fieldbuses and the well known HART Protocol. It is also often abbreviated as EDDL (Electronic Device Description
Language).
Below is a draft of an article from 2003. I publish this page to show how simple and obvious technical solutions can often be.
Today I found an article about device descriptions on one of my accounts, which I translated into English. It describes the emergence of the DDL.
ArticleDeviceDescriptionLanguage.pdf
PDF-Dokument [259.6 KB]
Embedded Firmware
Real Time Serial Communication
It is often said that windows is not real-time capable. But that is not necessarily the truth. First, computers are becoming faster and faster, and second, computer games place demands on the real-time capability of computers right from the start. So you just have to know how to do it.
For HartTools 7.4 and 7.5 there have been practically no complaints in recent years that would have made a change necessary. The stability of Hart communication in particular has been very high over the past 10 years.
One of the building blocks that led to this is the control of the com port in the Windows system. Since Hart communication involves a transmission rate of 1200 bit/s, real-time capability is easy
to establish, because the required reaction times are in a range of a view milliseconds.
From this code in HartTools we have derived a product with which we supply the source code for such a solution. The product name is Real Time Serial SCM. You can view the data sheet for this via the
following link:
Datasheet Real Time Serial SCM.
Embedded Devices Simulation, Part 1
From the beginning of the development of the firmware/software of embedded devices, PC simulations of the device software have proven to be extremely helpful in reducing the development
time.
However, the right interfaces and the concept are very important, because the realization of a simulation should be simple and easy to understand. That's why you shouldn't need any complex additional
tools. The more the simulation is based on the original source code of the device and the corresponding interfaces, the higher its quality.
The firmware for the device should be as reusable as possible and easy to transfer to different platforms.
We are currently working on a framework for such a solution and I have summarized some details for a draft in a short working document: Embedded Device Simulation, Part 1
If you have any questions or comments on one off these topics, please send us an e-mail. We will answer you as soon as possible.
Python
HartTools 7.5 works with Python 3.7.9
The module demonstrates the use of the HartDll from HartTools 7.5. It is kept very simple and shows the basic procedure for loading and using the Windows dll HartDrv75 in Python 3.7.9.
The example is loading the dll, registering the license and establishing a connection with a hart slave.
We have provided the complete source code in a pdf file which you can download by clicking the following link. Please let us know, if you are having any questions.
PDF-Dokument [47.3 KB]
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