In article , Nick Müller
wrote:

F. George McDuffee wrote:

Unless Siemens is using a special "shop hardened"/"mil spec" PC,

They certainly do.


... it is far cheaper than a purpose built limited function computer.

We (or I) was talking about OSes, not PCs.


Check the Dell ads to see how inexpensive an XP level unit can
be.

Nice. Neither the OS nor the PC is what I would connect to a 24/7
production machine.


Additional end-user benefits of using a stock or semi-stock
PC are easy up grade [e.g. tetrabyte drives, RAID data
protection, cheap memory up grade if 512 MEG isn't enough, 100$
monitor replacement, etc.]

No need for upgrades. Chances are very low, that a new version of
PowerPain, Sentence or InternetExploder will need more disk space, more
RAM or a faster CPU.


Additionally, unless you are satisfied with a "stand-alone"
system, it will be *MUCH* easier for your IT people [in- or out-
house] to integrate the computer into your existing LAN.

TCP/IP is a standard. If one knows what an IP-address is, he can connect
anything to ethernet if that anything has an interface. But if you
prefer using Autoconfusion-programs of your favorite OS, you are already
on the wrong track.


Also when [not if] you have computer problems, there is a much
better chance your local computer geek can fix it.

The ITs live from the problems that HW/OS makes. Don't confuse
maintainability with need for maintenance.

Amen, brother! That's why I used Sun Microsystems hardware for nearly
20 years. It's why I use linux and Mac OS X. I have *one* Windoze box
about so I can run Solidworks and other Windoze only programs, but
if/when Apple allows me to do this under OS X, it's goodbye, sucker!

FWIW I/we write our own datalogging code, not machine control, tho
we've done that too, for marine sampling systems.

PDW