Martin H. Dost

Simulation of electron beam control systems using DSL/90:

Both ROBERT R. BARBER and MARTIN H. DOST are at present staff engineers at the IBM Systems Development Division Laboratory, San Jose, California. Mr. Barber’s assignment includes the design and development of automatic control systems for electron beam columns. Since all the control systems to date have been nonlinear, he became interested in digital simulation to facilitate analytical studies. Mr. Dost’s field of interest is dynamic analysis in general and feedback control in particular. Bob, who is a native Texan, became a member of the IBM team in 1962, immediately after receiving his BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas Technological College in Lubbock. His first assignment was in the Research Laboratory in San Jose. Bob obtained his MS in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University under the IBM Graduate Work-Study Program. Early in 1965 he transferred to his present assignment in the Development Laboratory.

Variable frequency clock study using DSL/VS

Abstract A variable frequency clock (VFC) is an example of a common electronic feedback control system that defies rigorous analysis yet is readily studied by time domain simulation. Composed of several nonlinear as well as linear blocks, continuous and discrete elements, feedback and feedforward paths, such systems are also subject to input and parameter variations of stochastic nature. They are typically conceived by inventive engineers without the benefit of much analysis. Simulating such circuits by representing each component is possible but often unwieldy and of little help to the designer at inception. But, with the help of IBMs Dynamic Simulation Language (DSL/VS), a higher level model is easily coded, rapidly computed and conveniently evaluated by inspection of graphs. This permits accurate performance prediction as well as design optimization with or without man in the loop. A specific clocking scheme, employed in several IBM tape drives, is used as an example of modeling and simulating a hybrid circuit. Block and timing diagrams, complete application program code, and some graphs are given for this sample problem.

Simulation- a part of life at IBM

not absolutely necessary. Instead, economic considerations dominated, and design was generally done through experimentation with real hardware. The ingenuity of engineers and designers often sufficed, since many machines were still relatively simple and slow. At the same time the tools for simulation, both hardware and software, were quite crude and inconvenient, and the computer solutions were often not readily accepted.

Digital simulation of continuous processes

A well-organized social program included a welcoming reception, an organ recital in a 10th-century Benedictine abbey (followed by wine tasting and a Hungarian dinner on Pig-Killing Day, a national holiday), and a banquet with a floor show (Hungarian folklore and gypsy music). Also, bus tours were arranged to Lake Balaton and Budapest, where a world-wide hunters convention was in progress, preempting and the facilities for IFAC.