Undergraduate Teaching of Real-Time Computer Control Using a Multiuser Process Interface System

This paper describes a distributed process interface system which was implemented on a minicomputer at the University of Cape Town, the primary function of which is to give hands-on experience of real-time computing to undergraduate engineering students. This process interface is well suited to use in the educational environment because it can be accessed by several users, concurrently, in a manner which protects each program from interference by other users´ programs. A student project which involved the use of this system to control a process is also described.