Something brought up old memories from the days when I’ve been working in Embedded Systems development.
I’m third from the left…
The “big thing” in the back is a Diesel engine stripped from a big ship. Converted to an internal combustion engine working on natural gas and producing 6 Megawatts of Electrical power. Cooling/heating, turbo, oiling, ignition – those are only few subsystems of this complex.
One more picture:
My former employer, Romany Gaz Group, done all the electronics + software. It was a blast to work on. A mix of hardware, microprocessors and software, low level hacking and unforgettable feeling of true Research and Development work:
- writing in assembler for mythical Motorola 68HC11, an 8-bit microprocessor with a whopping 64 Kb of program memory and less than 1 Kb of RAM. Then come the HC12 with more memory and C compiler.
- in-house Real-Time Operational System with multi-tasking support.
- “advanced” user interfaces on 20x4 character displays and 5 button keyboards
- homebrew communication protocol spawning into few levels of OSI model
- tens of sensors and digital signals
- tens of output signals, valves, pumps
- a SCADA-like PC application for monitoring and control
And a fantastic team of talented engineers that tamed the beast. You have to hear it grumble…