> The PLCs are great, it’s the damned computers and their operating systems that keep needlessly changing our working system.
That's my gripe these days, long term used to be 20+ years. You can still get DL400 series PLC's from Automation Direct (rebranded Koyo) which are from the 90's. Now I see many embedded micros and processors advertised with 10 year long term supply. To me long term is around 20 or more years, basically someones career span. And dont get me started on all this industry 4.0 PC based control crap. Not everything needs millions of lines of Linux kernel to turn a few io points on or off. And the bloated systems that these platforms utilize is nauseating.
We expect minimum 20 years from PLCs, and unless parts become unavailable or failures too frequent we would generally go 30 years before replacement.
The PLCs are great, it’s the damned computers and their operating systems that keep needlessly changing our working system.
So we virtualize and air gap.