History of StateWORKS

The basic VFSM concept was conceived by Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Wagner, and further developed with the help of Ruedi Schmuki who developed the software for the real time data base.

The important milestones of the StateWORKS development are:

  • 1986 - 1990: Definition of VFSM concept and first implementation in E-Pascal on PDP-rtVax computer for SDS (Single Disk Sputtering) and Cluster Line machines in BALZERS AG (now Unaxis), Liechtenstein.
     
  • 1991: Application of the E-Pascal implementation for development of the Virtual Inline Systems VIS-750 in Pfeifer AG, Germany.
     
  • 1990 - 1991: Introduction of the VFSM Technology for telecommunication application in AT&T (now Lucent), Naperville, USA. AT&T designed a complete development and execution system for internal use. The software is written in C and is used, on an ever-increasing scale since that time, to develop switching systems. By mid-1997 over 600 programmers had been trained in this technology.
     
  • 1992: The paper F. Wagner: "VFSM Executable Specification" on CompEuro 1992, Hague, Holland.
     
  • 1994 - 1995: 2 patents (U.S. Patent No. 5,301,100 and 5,463,543) granted by Patent and Trademark Office, USA.
     
  • 1991 - 1993: Implementation of the VFSM-Technology on TSM system (Z280-microcontroller) and on Lynx-System (real time UNIX for PC).
     
  • 1992 - 1996: Development of StateWORKS (development and run-time system for WindowsNT operating system). This product is distributed by SW Software, Buchs, Switzerland.
     
  • 1994 - 1997: Development of Gantner control system for Coffee Roast Factory (Zumtobel, Dornbirn, Austria) and building control (Büro Fürrer and Sihl+Eika, Zürich, Switzerland) by AUMAT Software in Austria.
     
  • 1994: Book F. Wagner: "The Virtual Finite State Machine: Executable Control Flow Specification".
     
  • 1994 - 1997: Introduction of the VFSM Technology and StateWORKS tools at the technical university Lausitz, Senftenberg, Germany by Prof. F. Wagner.
     
  • 1996: Trademark "StateWORKS", No: 395 33 236.2, granted by Deutsches Patentamt, Munich, Germany.
     
  • 1997 - 2000: Development of a new software generation for Optoelectronic Measurement Devices using StateWORKS, Focus (UBM), Ettlingen, Germany.
     
  • 2000 - 2002: Improvements of development tools. Introduction of the run-time system with the COM-interface.
     
  • 2001 - 2004: Application of StateWORKS for robot control system, Data Physics. Filderstadt, Germany.
     
  • 2002: Application of StateWORKS for implementation of a proprietary RS. ITP protocol for data transmission in wireless sets, Rohde&Schwarz, München, Germany.
     
  • 2003: Introduction of StateWORKS Studio and StateWORKS System products. Major improvements of development tools, for instance XML export, terminal client, debug extensions for monitor etc.
     
  • 2004 - 2005: Introduction of the run-time systems for different variants of Windows: Windows XP embedded and Windows CE. Expansion of the run-time system onto Linux platform.
     
  • 2005 - 2006: Book F. Wagner, R.Schmuki, T. Wagner, P. Wolstenholme: "Modeling Software with Finite State Machines: A Practical Approach".
     
  • 2006: Mr. Vito Marolda in Maranello (Modena), Italy (www.vitomarolda.com) developed a compiler for translating the StateWORKS specification results into C code. This work is aimed at embedded systems. The compiler was used first time in a project of multi-ingredient dosing and mixing automation (70 I/O's, 300 parameters, 19 Units, 17 different VFSM designs with a total of 39 VFSM instances).
     
  • 2010-2011: Design and implementation of TechnoDoor, France control system using an RTDB based application and the RtdbUI library. The I/O interface is built using ioBoard.net components.
     
  • 2011: addition of the thinState compiler to the StateWORKS Studio. The thinState compiler generates C-code being an implementation of the specified system of state machines. It may be used in microcontroller applications.