The Technikum Winterthur (TWI), uses a 80C186 target-system from Intel for teaching assembly language programming in the Technical Informatics course. At the micro-computer laboratory, a target system E20 with the same processor is used. The target systems have both, a RS232 serial interface and a monitor program in two EPROMS. Therefore, the 186-processor can be controlled by another computer. To control these target systems, a debugging tool is used, which was developed with Turbo-Pascal. The user interface is implemented with the OOP-library Turbo-Vision.

In a previous project at the TWI, which lasted six weeks, and in this diploma thesis, which lasted seven weeks, a new debugging tool Ed86 was developed for these target systems. The program allows to load a DOS-program into the memory of the target system and to debug the program. Compared to the current version, the new one works with Borland-C / C++ in addition to the Borland-languages Turbo-Assembly and Pascal.

The new version of the Ed86 has been developed as a Windows NT and as a Windows 3.1 application with Delphi.

During the previous project, many basic functions of Ed86 were implemented. The program worked, but it did not allow to use the symbolic debug information.

In this thesis, all functions were implemented in Ed86, to use the symbolic debug information. After this, the program was tested. There are several test applications. All of them were developed to test a special function of Ed86.

During the last part of the work, a help file was built for the Ed86. Now, the program has matured enough for being used as a helpful tool in the classroom for education purposes.

ABB Industrie AG is a distributor of the Advant Open Control System. With this control system, you can control processes like e.g. a huge power plant. After the sale they want to give a good support, for that they have a support-line. But when they have to solve a problem for their customers, it would be a big advantage if they could see what caused the error. One way to do that, is to send a service engineer to the e. g. plant. But this costs a lot of money and needs a lot of time to get to the plant. The better solution is to connect from Baden to the remote control system and to analyse and solve the problem, without going to the plant locally. For that we had to evaluate an alternative PC-X-Server software for Exceed. Based on a report from sunworldonline we chose Reflection X. An other task was to make a performance test over an analog line (modem) and a digital line (ISDN). But first of all, we had to install the software and the modem, and especially the installation of the modem on the HP-UX 9.05 operating system was very complicate. So we made a script to simplify the installation of the modem. For all the other installations (software, router, tape), we also made an installation guide. We made the performance test with several modem speeds. With a modem speed of 38400 bps we need 52 seconds to display a process image with 52 dynamic points and a complicated graphic. On HP-UX 9.05 the speed of the serial interface is limited on 38400 bps. When you use an ISDN line and connect the workstation via a router, you need for the same process image with a speed of 64 kbps 12 seconds, and if you take both channels of the ISDN line (128kbps) only 6 seconds. With the version Exceed 6.0 you have the possibility to start an X-application over the Internet. To do that, the web-server, where the UNIX/X-application is embedded, must have the new release of X11 (X11R6.3). The new release of X11 has a few new features for the security and connections over slow dial-up line.

The Pacificar is a modified car that is able to drive around autonomously with the help of sensors and actuators for navigation. In addition to the microcontroller 68HC11, specific hardware allows the car to execute different tasks. The controller can be programmed with Interactive C. This programming language allows to implement several processes that run parallel on the car.

The goal of this project was to develop a program which makes the Pacificar drive into a parking space. Eventually, the car should be able to drive along a wall, detect a parking space and park into it if there is enough free space. Collisions with objects should be avoided.

There are two modelling techniques that are suitable for this problem. The parking procedure can be realised as a finite state machine. Another possibility is to use the Subsumption Approach which was developed at MIT. Using this technique, the goal is to define several behaviors that all have different responsibilities (e.g. driving parallel, detecting a parking space, avoiding collisions and so on). A suppressing mechanism is provided, so that a behaviour with a higher priority can take control over the actuators needed.

Apart from some limitations, we could meet the goals. The Pacificar is now able to drive along a wall, it can detect parking spaces and parks if there is enough free space to drive in. Additionally, the car leaves the space after some time and finally carries on driving along the wall.The main reason for the limitations is the lack of additional sensors. There are only two ultrasonic-sensors for exploring the environment. The realisation of the "pure" Subsumption Logic was not possible because this approach needs multiple and, if possible, independent sensors. Therefore, the implementation is based on a finite state machine.

A wide range of refinements are possible when multiple sensors are added.

The main goal was to model an electronic stock market exchange in a platform independent manner. One of the points was to examine how effectively Java can work in a fully distributed architecture. In this context the challenge was the proper choice of the communication paradigm.

We evaluated the pros and cons of CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and RMI (Remote Method Invocation) and decided to use the latter. The reason was its elegance and superior platform independency.

We implemented the essential functionality of the central stock market actors (trader, member interface, matcher and database) in a way which offers complete independence between logical and physical (network) topology and equipment.

We mastered the complexity of our software system by strictly adhering to object oriented design methods, together with the use of a CASE tool and the rich set of existing Java class libraries.

The resulting software is a working system that can be exploited as a training model for stock traders. Moreover it is a comprehensive example of a non-trivial, truly distributed, and platform independent application.

At the Technikum Winterthur, in the last years several databased WWW-applications have been realized. The aim of this diploma thesis was to proof the suitance of Java in connection with the JBDC-Interface for such applications. As application a procedure to register all the abstracts of the practical diplom thesis should be realized and presented in a booklet.

In the past, to generate the booklet the lecturers sent the items to the e-mail adress of the responsable who made the registration in the RDB-database. These data were selected and sorted by a program and converted to the latex format. As a new solution the oracle database instead of RDB should be used and a registration procedure by the WWW should be created.

We had two different solutions: an applet and a server-side-applet. Because of the speed and security we decided to realize the server-side-applet.As our task we established a usersurface for students and lecturers on the WWW which allowes the registration of the abstracts. Also the booklet and the HTML-pages for the WWW can be generated by a separate Java-application.

We developed our work on a DEC-Unix workstation and tested it with the Netscape Navigator 4.0 Browser on a PC. All our programs are written in Java. For the connection to the oracle database we used an oracle JDBC-thin-driver.The task could be completed. The registration procedure and the generation of the booklet already worked successfully.

By realizing this task we obtained a lot of new knowledge in database and WWW utilities. We got experienced in Java, JDBC, SQL and HTML.

The task of this diploma thesis was to extend the citymap of Winterthur for the Internet. We had to analyse two basic approaches and if possible to realize one or both of them. One possibility is a serverbased CGI-Application. It allows the user to search streets and objects with a mouseclick into the actual map. The other possibility sends a Java-Applet for every map, which shows the names of the streets and objects when the user moves the mouse over the map.

The result of the investigation was that both possibilities are very interesting applications for the user. The version with Java is more interesting but very slow. Because of this we decided to implement the serverbased CGI-Applikation and realized only a simple solution with Java. Both programs are running well.

After an introduction we listed all the aims we needed to reach and began with the basic approaches of the two given possibilities. After that we divided the work. Two weeks before the end of the work we began with the tests and the documentation of the whole program.

To work we used the UNIX-Workstations in the laboratorium for software engineering. The programs are all written in C, C++ and Java with the FUSE-Editor. The documentation was written on a personal computer with Word 97.

All the tasks are completed. At the end of the work we have two versions of the citymap: A serverbased CGI-Application and a CGI-Application with a Java-Applet. Both programs are running well.

This diploma thesis gave us a great insight into the Internet programming and the possibility to learn new programming languages which we didn't know before. We are sure that the acquired knowledge is very useful for our future.

In future, the subject software engineering (SE) will be enriched with a development method called Communicating Interacting Processes (CIP). The aim of this task was to get experience by developing a complete CIP system. The project arose together with J. Müller AG, which employs CIP in their software development department.

CIP is a model-based development method for reactive real-time systems. CIP specifications consist of architectural and behavioural models which describe synchronously and asynchronously cooperating state machines. Behaviour abstraction is supported by a novel model allowing for the construction of behaviour hierarchies. CIP models are easily constructed with the CIP Tool, a tailor-made software tool with graphical editors and C-code generators. From the graphical models of cooperating state machines the tool generates reactive software-components executable on the target systems.

In this case CIP was used to develop a software component for a sensor bus on the PALAS measuring trolley. PALAS is an automated track measurement system developed by J. Müller AG. The system calculates the absolute position of the track for measurement recording runs or the direct control of track maintenance machinery. Soon, the measuring trolley will be expanded with a sensor bus for additional monitoring. The software for the sensor bus was developed with CIP.In addition, a test software was realized for real-time testing. A user dialog at a terminal with log session possibility pointed out exactly the behaviour of the sensor bus software component.During the project, the company J. Müller AG provided the complete developing environment and a model of the measuring trolley.

CIP is a reliable and robust software method, that support the incremental development. CIP makes possible a safe and flexible system maintenance. The tool is a powerful and user-friendly software kit.

Every second year all citizens liable to taxation have to declare their income and proprieties on a tax declaration form for the Inland Revenue to calculate the tax bill. To be able to cope with the immense flood of data the Inland Revenue of the cantons Zurich an St. Gall were looking for possible computer aided options to help them do their job more efficiently. In the near future all citizens should be able to use the computer to help them fill in their own tax declaration form.

It was our goal to create a prototype which points out one possible way of filling in a taxation form and sending it via Internet to the Tax Authorities. Each citizen liable to taxation should with this program, which has been created in this diploma thesis, be able to transmit his taxform via Internet to the authorities. Subjects like security and authentication have also been considered and possible solutions found. The directions for use are simple and easy to be dealt with.

For the developement and modelling of the prototype the ideas of the State Event Technology were used. The "Finite State Machine" reacts with an predefined behaviour pattern considering the internal state and the input of the user.

Apart from some small restrictions we were able to achieve all our goals.

The program which has been written in Java and JavaScript is able to guide the user from the appliance of a password to the delivery of the taxation form. The data security has been achieved through the SSL (Secure Socket Layer). The users authorization follows per letter, per post, which will be sent to him from the Inland Revenue and contains the password.

Restrictions had to be made because our programm could not be tested with the newest Browsergeneration of Microsoft (Explorer 4.0) as ist wasn't available at the right moment at the Technikum.

The C4-format envelopes get printed with a special barcode during the automatic process of sorting big envelopes at the head post office. This barcode contains information about the distribution.

The goal in our diploma thesis is, to read and recognize the barcode. This work is a continuation of a preview project. We divided this work in two parts. The first part is the reading and digitization of the barcode, the second the evaluation of the digit data.

The first thing we had to do, was to become familiar with the preview work. Getting familiar with Visual C++ 4.2 from the Microsoft Developer Studios, was very time investing.

We decided, to divide the recognition of the barcode in three phases, in a colour filter, in a slope of determination and an analysis of the barcode. A text input as well as the possibility to read and write data was programmed to manage the data in a sensible way.

To take the picture of the barcode we used a hand held scanner, a page scanner and a digitalcamera. All these scanners work with the TWAIN interface. It was important to construct a Box for the digitalcamera with a homogeneous light and a fix distance to the barcode. Furthermore we realized the control of the digitalcamera with the AVI interface. In comparison to the TWAIN interface the AVI interface has the advantage of less work during programming. Further it was necessary to adapt the colour filter for each scanner. This is because each scanner has different attributes.

The barcode program, which works with the page scanner, guarantees a reliable evaluation of the barcode. The recognition with the digitalcamera is difficult because of the brightness. Once the brightness is set, it works reliable too. The application with the hand held scanner has many problems related with the driver from the producer.

The Sulzer Innotec Corp. uses for their noise measurement microphon arrays. These arrays are built with several microphones on a linear rack. This gage can detect the position of noise sources in the area and their power output. Up to now the microphone signals have been recorded on a digital recorder and the data analysed in the lab.

During a project thesis at Winterthur Polytechnic in spring 97, a program for the digital signal processor (DSP) TMS320C44 was developed, which analyses the measurement data on one processor in real-time. With this program, the maximum power of the DSP-system with one or several processors could be ascertained.

The first part of diploma thesis consisted of testing the program from the project thesis.

The second part of diploma thesis consisted of preparing the program for installation on a multiprocessor system. At the same time the possibility of filtering the input signals with any given functions and reading the input signals with any given oversampling rate had to built in.