Compact II

[cnc wizard]

Anyone still using compact II programming language?

 

[dwb]

Still use Compact IIe every day of the week, got about 14,000 programs we use and maintain. A very powerful language, still hard to beat it today with many of the "state of the art" systems.

 

[Dcrouch]

Wow! Compact II. Does that bring back some memories. I only used it to program 2 axis wire edm but at the time I was amazed what it could do.

 

[PixMan]

Still use Compact IIe every day of the week, got about 14,000 programs we use and maintain. A very powerful language, still hard to beat it today with many of the "state of the art" systems.

Hey there! Hello from a fellow Worcester guy.

My parents are still there in the city, as is one of my sisters and many of my nieces and nephews. I'm 10 miles west, but there often. Ping me with a PM, I'm curious to know where you work that you still use Compact IIe programming.

A funny thing is that abot 10 years ago I had posted on the local Craigslist that I had a pile of books for Compact II and APT programming to sell off. I got an e-mail from a guy in southern NH who seemed to want them, he asked if I'd bring the manuals up to his shop so I did. When I got there he looked at the books, handed me the money and asked if I knew how to use them. Sure, but it's been a few years since I programmed in those languages. Next thing I know he's walking me around his big shop. It was a Saturday, only a couple of people working OT.

After talking with him for almost an hour about all his NC (not CNC) machines, I suddenly realized he was interviewing me for a programming job. Oops, I gotta leave. I didn't want to start commuting over 50 miles each way!

 

[dwb]

A large Pump manufacturer between Worcester and Springfield. It's been there for over 100 years, most likely bought the first copy of Compact IIe. we are also using Esprit and NX7.5.

 

[metlcutr55]

After talking with him for almost an hour about all his NC (not CNC) machines, I suddenly realized he was interviewing me for a programming job. Oops, I gotta leave. I didn't want to start commuting over 50 miles each way!

the last time i saw it was also in s nh, joy mfg in claremont. we had just a couple cncs then, the rest were nc's, and even a couple automatics. i was the night shift ie guy, not really a programmer but could make small fixes when needed. if i remember it went like this. get the loop mylar from the machinist. load it into the teletype. call a boston phone#, wait for the noise and hang up the phone and send the program. they would send it back in compact ii. print it, read it and edit in the teletype. send back to boston same way, they would send it back in g code i guess, its been a while. make a paper tape and test on the machine. if not 100%, do it all again. if ok, use another machine to copy the paper tape to mylar, and hand splice. my garage shop now uses a 20 yr old dos version of alphacam, usually in 2 1/2 d, and an rs232 connection. like comparing a 1990 vette to a 57 chevy. i like to watch the fellow at work on his mastercam setup with the 2 big screens, in 3d, id like to learn it but the bosses have decided im an old fellow capable of loading parts on fixts and measuring the results. its a job, and the money and bennies are better than ok. not bitching i guess, i get to make 20 or so different parts, fellow next to me makes the same part every day all the time, has for years, crys up a storm about it tho if anything new is attempted to be introduced he goes mental. and he'll likely do it for another 20 yrs if the product line holds up. i would need thorazine 2x a day to do his job.

 

[tooldude328]

WOW Compact II I learned that waaaay back in 1977 before there were cnc machines. They were just nc machines we had 2 bridgeport series 2 mills with a smoking fast rapid traverse rate of 40 IPM that ran off punched paper tape. punched the tape on a western union teletype that was hooked up to a smoking fast 300 baud modem to connect to the mainframe in Houston Texas that the compactII software was loaded on. State of the art back then for a 19 year old kid. I thought I was so cool doing all that high tech stuff. Remember it like it was yesterday defining all the geometry. I think I still have the manuals for CompactII somewhere.

 

[mrainey]

I thought I was so cool doing all that high tech stuff.

You were cool.

 

[PixMan]

A large Pump manufacturer between Worcester and Springfield. It's been there for over 100 years, most likely bought the first copy of Compact IIe. we are also using Esprit and NX7.5.

I know where you are then....

 

[706jim]

Saw this post after being offline for a couple of weeks and couldn't believe it. I retired and emptied out my office two weeks ago. I just couldn't leave my Compact II manual behind, mostly for nostalgic reasons. I have showed students that the geometry they define in a modern CAD system with various mouse clicks was defined IN WORDS back in the APT Compact days. I still remember the teletypes, $0.45 CCU costs of Compact II and the plotter slowly etching out your tool path. We used it for a plasma cutter and (minimally) for a Whitney NC punch press.

 

[dwb]

We started our NC adventure using Action Central, looked allot like compact II, this was run on an old IBM 360 main frame. The programs were coded by hand on a coding pad then key punchists would create a punched card for every line of code. The program could only be run at night when they weren't running the MRP system. From there we moved to timeshare using compact II, the programs were stored on a DEC. PDP-11-8, we would log on to time share to process the source code. I started programming about 1986, we bought NCS system, still on PDP-11 using Compact II, we would time share for new "LINKS", sort of like a posts, still had to hard copy pen-plot to verify the tool path. In the early 90's along came the Bravo software with NCGraphics, Bravodraft, and the Editor 3D modeler our Engineering group used. We switched to a DEC MicroVax, had 1 $30,000 workstation for all the programmers to share. We would use VT100 terminals to edit and write the programs, and the workstation to graphically verify and or create complicated milling toolpaths. At this point there were too few solid models to help us. In the mid to late 90's the software was moved to PC's, processing time decreased to almost nothing, and working Graphically or via a text editor was right at everyone's fingertips. We have on file some 14,000 + programs we can and do call up to make repeat parts, swap from one machine to another or create new part programs. having done this for so long we are experts, and this process is usually pretty quick. About the only thing we can not do effectively is program our Mori NT6600 mill turn, we use Esprit for that.

 

[fryebd]

I used Compact II from the mid-70s to 1984 while working for Bethlehem Steel Corp in Johnstown, PA. We4 started out using time share for a profile crush roll grinder. I (plus 2 other guys) wrote part programs for an EX-CELL-O milling machine (manufactured in London, Ontario), a profile crush grinder, and a GE mill roll lathe. These were written on a DEC PDP-11/23.

The area where I worked made hot rolled special sections similar to the ones shown on this link.VOL-Stahl ? Special steel profiles
When responding to a quote from a prospective customer, we would hand draw an end view of the section and use a hand held barrel readout planimeter to determine the area by tracing around the section. (We’ve come a long way baby) This was such a hassle depending on how much coffee you drank.

I thought there must be a better way. I used Compact II to describe the part and then traced around using a 0TPR. I wrote a FORTRAN program to read the tape file. I then used a formula I found in my calculus book to determine the areas in the 4 quadrants down to the x-axis: I and II were positive numbers and III and IV were negative. This gave me the exact area of the end view.

Not a big deal to do this now with current technology where pencil never touches the paper. Back then, MDSI was charging $35K for the module to compute areas and moments of inertia.

I’ve enjoyed my trip down memory lane. (DLN & DCIR)

 

[ErnieD]

The only experience that I had with Compact II was a disaster. I was put in charge of a group of process engineer/programmers and was shown how to make paper tapes from the master mylar tape. One of the machine operators came to me one time while the programmers were at lunch and asked me to make him a tape for a job that he was setting up.

I made the tape and he left. About an hour later I walked by the tool crib and that operator was at the window so I asked him how the setup went. He told me that he had a tremendous crash and for me to go look in the chip conveyor.

I walked over to the machine, a New Britain 2 spindle vertical turret lathe with 18" chucks, and saw 2 very large " L " heads or tool holders down in the conveyor between the chucks. Whoops.

Long story short, the guys who showed me how to do the tapes forgot to tell me that one of the New Britains had a 7" riser in it. Unknowingly I gave the guy a tape for the higher machine and he was setting the job in the lower machine. There was considerable damage to the machine rail, turrets and chucks with the attendant costs and downtime. The next day as I was passing thru the room where we stored all the tapes I saw a note on the cabinent and it read in large print " IF YOU DON'T WHAT THE F--K YOU ARE DOING STAY OUT OF THESE DRAWERS".

The guy who wrote the note and I are still friends and have lunch every Friday with a group of retirees from the same plant>

 

[Bruce Nelson]

When I started my career as a Machine Shop Instructor for Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College in 1968. (formerly Advotech 18) Our first foray into cnc machining was with a Index milling machine equipped with a Slo-Syn control back in about 1972. It was controlled by punched paper tape and programmed by hand. In 1969 we had a computer repair course at out New Richmond campus with a PDP-11 main frame computer, we learned about a offer to our school from Compact II in which they would let us use their main frame computer by phone somewhere in Texas after 9pm in the evening. We cobbled together a workstation consisting of a Radio Shack computer, modem, and a paper tape punch. The school sent me to a Compact II school in Ann Arbor, Michigan to learn the system. I used this system to teach our students, using the paper tape on our Slo-Syn n/c machine. I even ran a summer course for area vocational instuctors on this system. We even finally installed Compact II on our schools PDP-11.

When I went to the fall Machine Tool Show at McCormick place. There was a small booth operated by Allan Pease from BeachCam, which was a program run on a cheap Apple computer that used commands similar to Compact II. Well, we scrapped the Compact II and adopted BeachCam, which did exactly the same thing as Compact II, but ran on Apple computers.

Then, I got wind of a Cad program called Cadkey, which let you draw in 3-d on a IBM PC. It used the same view assignments as the instruction book that we used for blueprint reading. I called Cadkey, and got a copy for my computer in about 1980. I became a salesman for their software in the same year. I also heard of a cam program called Mastercam, and called them and got a copy of their program for the same computer. At the time, Mastercam didn't have their own cad program, so they used Cadkey CADL files for the their cad input.

Being that our school was in a high density area for plastic injection mold making, I was in a good situation for selling these programs to local toolmakers, who bought them like hotcakes. I had some very good years up until 1999, when I got out of the business. I retired from teachine at Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College in 1996 after 30 years. My Cadkey and Mastercam sales allowed me to buy some expensive toys (4 airplanes and a hangar at the New Richmond airport) and a business building (Third Dimension Technology, Inc and Apple River Cad/Cam Academy at Star Prairie)

I do have a lot of other stories to tell about the development of CAD/CAM instruction over the years, but all-in-all it has been very rewarding to me.

It also allowed me to buy a Atrump B3EC with a Centroid control to add to my well equipped shop in my northern location, to which I will return on May 1 to embark on my summer projects for the next 6 months.

 

[HLudlum]

I know where you are then....

The first MDSI Customer was 'US Naval Ordnance Station, Louisville, KY'.
They were Customer #1
The second MDSI Customer was 'General Tool, Cincinnati, OH..
They were Customer #2

 

[HLudlum]

Anyone still using compact II programming language?

This post dated Febuary 1st, 2023 and believe it or not there are still people using it.
The best NC Programming language that ever was.
The user had total control of 'Driving the tool'
I used Compac II begining in 1974. In 1986 I went to work for Applicon (MDSI's mame change) in 1986.
Was an Applications Engineer and when Unigraphics Solutions purchased us in 1999, I was the Manager of Product Planning for the CAM Software.
I have Bravo3 v8 running on my Windows 10 PC today.
Long Live Compact II, NCGraphics, BravoDraft & GEM.

 

[HLudlum]

Saw this post after being offline for a couple of weeks and couldn't believe it. I retired and emptied out my office two weeks ago. I just couldn't leave my Compact II manual behind, mostly for nostalgic reasons. I have showed students that the geometry they define in a modern CAD system with various mouse clicks was defined IN WORDS back in the APT Compact days. I still remember the teletypes, $0.45 CCU costs of Compact II and the plotter slowly etching out your tool path. We used it for a plasma cutter and (minimally) for a Whitney NC punch press.

Can I ask what Plasma Cutters did you program, what controls did they use and what was the machine code called? I have been searching for documentation on the Dutch Ship Building NC Code Standard called ESSI.

BTW I worked for MDSI/APPLICON and I think I have two cases of Compact II manuals in the basement. If anyone is interested, i will sell.
Huston Ludlum

 

[706jim]

I think the plasma was Linde. I know the control was Boston Digital that read punched tapes. That control had the ability to back up along the cutter path say if the torch flamed out. It had a rudimentary cutter width compensation but we made more accurate parts by offsetting the tool path by half of the kerf width much like would be done on a milling machine. Machine code was EIA G code very similar to what is still used today.

 

[DDoug]

BTW I worked for MDSI/APPLICON and I think I have two cases of Compact II manuals in the basement. If anyone is interested, i will sell.
Huston Ludlum

"Sell" ???

 

[EmanuelGoldstein]

"Sell" ???

Hope springs eternal

Now if we get the software with it, and it runs on Irix, I'm in ...