Skip to main content

Concurrency, Device Abstraction and Real-Time Processing in AMPLE

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: Advanced Manufacturing Series ((ADVMANUF))

Abstract

The development of the Automated Manufacturing Programming Language Environment (AMPLE) at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, formerly the National Bureau of Standards, began in 1984. The technical goal of this project was to design and implement a system that would permit reliable off-line programming of workstation-level industrial equipment [7, 9, 11, 12]. The first decision that had to be made was the selection of the family of programming languages to which the target system would belong. Because it was very clear that this selection would profoundly affect the final design, the alternative possibilities were thoroughly explored during the summer of 1984, leading finally to the selection of the Lisp family. This selection was then, and remains even now, a controversial one, since the natural audience for AMPLE would be more comfortable with a derivative of FORTRAN [6]. This decision was based on an analysis of the technical requirements that AMPLE would have to satisfy, and particularly upon the requirement that the system have at least that degree of symbolic processing capability to be able to generate code for a large number manufacturing devices, which have their own native languages.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Abelson H, Sussman GJ. Structure and interpretation of computer programs. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1985

    Google Scholar 

  2. Apt KR, Olderog E-R. Verification of sequential and concurrent programs. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1991

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bandy HT, Carew VE Jr, Boudreaux JC. An AMPLE Version 0.1 prototype: the HWS implementation. National Bureau of Standards, 1988 (NBSIR 88-3770)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Betz D. An Xlisp tutorial. Byte 1985; March: 221

    Google Scholar 

  5. Betz DM. XLISP: an object-oriented Lisp, Version 1. 7. Unpublished manuscript, June 1986

    Google Scholar 

  6. Boudreaux JC. Problem solving and the evolution of programming languages. In: Jernigan R, Hamill BW, Weintraub DM (eds) The role of language in problem solving-1. North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1985, pp 103–26

    Google Scholar 

  7. Boudreaux JC. AMPLE: a programming language environment for automated manufacturing. In: Boudreaux JC, Hamill BW, Jernigan R (eds) The role of language in problem solving-2. North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1987, pp 359–76

    Google Scholar 

  8. Boudreaux JC. Requirements for global programming languages. In: Proceedings of the symposium on manufacturing application languages, MAPL 88, pp 107–14

    Google Scholar 

  9. Boudreaux JC. AMPLE core interpreter: user’s guide. US National Institute of Standards and Technology, September 1990 (Internal report NISTIR 4388)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Boudreaux JC. Code generation techniques to support device abstraction. In: Proceedings of the international conference on manufacturing systems and standardization, Budapest, Hungary, 1991, pp 1–9

    Google Scholar 

  11. Boudreaux JC. A programming language environment for quality control. In: 20th international controllers conference, IPC’91, 1991, pp 579–90

    Google Scholar 

  12. Boudreaux JC, Staley SM. Representing and querying objects in AMPLE. Engineering database management: leadership key for the 90’s. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York, 1989, pp 73–9

    Google Scholar 

  13. Dijkstra EW. A discipline of programming. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1976

    Google Scholar 

  14. Halstead RH. Multilisp: a language for concurrent symbolic computation. ACM Trans Program Lang Syst 1985; 7: 501–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hoare CAR. Communicating sequential processes. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1985

    Google Scholar 

  16. Ito I, Matsui M. Parallel Lisp language PaiLisp and its kernel specification. In: Ito I, Halstead RH Jr (eds) Parallel Lisp: languages and systems. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1989, pp 58–100 (Lecture notes in computer science no. 441)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Gabriel RP, McCarthy J. Queue-based multi-processing Lisp. In: ACM symposium on Lisp and functional programming, Austin, TX, 1984, pp 25 - 44

    Google Scholar 

  18. Mason IA. The semantics of destructive Lisp. CSLI, Stanford, CA, 1986 (CSLI lecture notes 5)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Stankovic JA. Misconceptions about real-time computing. IEEE Comput 1988; 21: 10–19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Stankovic JA, Ramamritham K. What is predictability for real-time systems? Real-Time Syst 1990; 2: 247–54

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Steele GL. Common Lisp: the language. Digital Press, 1984

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1993 Springer-Verlag London Limited

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Boudreaux, J.C. (1993). Concurrency, Device Abstraction and Real-Time Processing in AMPLE. In: Gruver, W.A., Boudreaux, J.C. (eds) Intelligent Manufacturing:. Advanced Manufacturing Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2023-0_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2023-0_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-2025-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-2023-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics