Document Title: SLAC Control System Reference Manual

Document Number: SLAC-I-040-20300-013-R003

Date: September 1, 2006

Editor: Chris Melton, Originator: Janice Nelson

1. Introduction

The purpose of this document is to present in one document the information that operations staff needs to efficiently use the SLAC control system, including the VAX and VMS, the DEC Alphas, and all other computer systems used in MCC:

• Commonly used commands to get around the VAX (Section 2)
• How to run a SCP and modify its common files (Section 3)
• How to run the most common programs, including ARTEMIS (Section 4)
• How to edit the database (Section 5)
• An introduction to software development for the SCP (Section 6).

This document will be used primarily by the MCC control room staff; however, those who work with the accelerator and the control system might also find it helpful, including PEP II, LCLS, and SABER physicists and software staff.

Communication between the control system and the user is given in examples throughout this manual. Commands the user gives to the computer follow a greater than sign (“>“) and are in bold face type, where the user only types the command, not the prompt (“>“). Case-specific user commands are given in italics. Any response to a user’s request from the control system is given in courier ("typewriter") font.

This document can be found online, linked to the AD operations webpage here. In late October of 2006, this website will also link to a utility for submitting your comments or suggestions regarding information, errors, etc. on a particular section or topic.

Below is a detailed description of particular improvements, updates, etc. in the current revision of this document, as compared with previous revisions.

The SLAC Control System Reference Manual (CSRM) has evolved alongside SLAC’s changing accelerator programs. Below are highlights of specific features in this revision (SLAC-I-040-20300-013-R003), as compared with previous revisions (SLAC-I-040-20300-013-R001,2).

The release of this revision of the CSRM includes updates of all nine chapters but focuses primarily on chapters 1-4, parts of chapter 5, and 7. The most obvious change is the title: SLAC Control System Reference Manual; all previous revisions of this document held the title VAX and Control System Reference Manual. The new change was prompted by the suggestions of operations staff and reflects the migration from VAX architectures to others (DEC Alphas, UNIX, & Linux.)

The biggest changes made for this revision include an updated treatment of the control systems currently in use, verifying the local and remote login modes – including information on all platforms such as DSL, Mac logins, Citrix, and others; it also includes updates about development nodes including MCCA1 and MCCA2, as well as new print queue and system logical information. This revision also includes detailed information about the ARTEMIS system as well as updates on POLL0 and DISP86. It expands IPL information based upon the supertype structure of the database, and incorporates numerous suggestions made by the originator of the document and other operations staff.

The CSRM contains a new OpenVMS quick-guide for the operating system, which expands the material from Jai Young’s excellent 1996 VAX/VMS Primer, and is located in Section 2.15.

The next revision (R004) of the CSRM will be a comprehensive rewrite of the database sections to reflect recommendations made by numerous operations staff as well as to keep those sections current. A tutorial on CMS is also planned as an expansion of Chapter 7, which currently contains SLCCMS information, and help on editors such as EVE and LSEdit will be expanded. R004 will also update the index, mail, ftp, TELNET, and other sections and address technical problems (such as the missing app-defaults for Matlab that have been discovered).

Please direct questions to cmelton@SLAC.stanford.edu.