SmartShelf{trademark}: Report of activities for fiscal year 1997
TN (United States) Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant, Z Bell, USDOE, Washington, DC (United States) (US), R Lawson · 1997
This report covers activities relating to the SmartShelf{trademark} project during the period October 1, 1996, through September 30, 1997. During this year, project team members have advanced the state of both the hardware and software through a six-month-long test that exercised all hardware and nearly all software components. Second-generation node hardware was constructed and tested with the system and it was found that components supplied by Dallas Semiconductor did not meet the manufacturer`s specifications and were unstable. However, it was possible to work around this problem by rapidly redesigning the second-generation printed circuit board to use proven first-generation electronics and still fit inside the custom designed second-generation enclosure. Thus, the benefits realized by adopting the custom enclosure was not compromised. The software was improved by moving the user interface from modules developed with LabView to forms, queries, and reports developed with Microsoft Access and the structures of the software was modified to take better advantage of the dynamic data exchange (DDE) client-server architecture built into the Windows95 operating system and Access.