Tools in transition

In 1972, when Consolidated Edison specified the first utility owned plant reference simulator for Indian Point 2, a hand-held calculator was $400 without memory and had four arithmetic functions. Power plant simulators were in their infancy, as were EMS and SCADA systems. Life cycle issues were primarily hardware maintainability issues. Assembly language was predominate and acceptable (and often fun). However, more applications meant more assembly language to manage. The concept of software packages was not yet conceived. In 1972, who would have believed that by 1988 you would have a computer in your home, buy packages of software, and possibly und never see assembly language again. The authors discuss how the changes in the next 15 years will be more illusive to predict than the previous years. However, the authors believe todays' tools and technologies, available for real time software, are well designed and field proven to support the certification needs of nuclear power plant simulators and the restructuring of fossil simulator products