Contemporary Cybernetics

APPLICATIONS OF MICROPROCESSORS TO INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES Controlling an industrial process using a large central main frame machine, or even an hierarchy of such machines, is hardly new. But now it is becoming positively old‐fashioned as cheap micro‐processors are being developed to take control of industrial processes. Devolution is at work, with an army of micros controlling factory processes at the points where direct control is required. Each microprocessor can monitor and control a single part of the process and, if failure occurs, a second or even a third micro can take over the functioning or alternatively the rest of the process will be undisturbed. For example, it may still be necessary for a central computing machine to supervise a number of different functions such as initiation of some function like switching on a motor, or controlling a valve. But each function could be individually controlled in turn by its own micro‐processor unit.