Emulation and enhancement of the Honeywell 2600 automatic test station

The Honeywell 2600 is an automatic test station deployed in the 1970's which has been used in the depot repair of C5, F-16, and F-15 avionics. With the rapid changes in technology that are occurring, the Air Force is continually upgrading test stations such as this one by retrofitting with modern equipment and software. Test program sets (TPSs) written for these test stations should require little, if any, modification if the test station components can be emulated. An initial effort has been completed in which components of the Honeywell 2600 have been emulated on PC hardware using modern COTS equipment. The emulated primary computer components are the Honeywell 316 CPU, CPU front panel, magnetic tape drive, operator keyboard and monitor, and operator test station console. The emulated measurement instruments are the digital multimeter, sample-and-hold, time frequency digitizer, programmable threshold detector and time delay generator. The capabilities of the instruments have been replaced by those with GPIB and VXI interfaces, and the capabilities of the primary computer components have been emulated in software. Drivers for each replacement instrument were developed in a standard manner such that future drivers could be easily, and dynamically integrated. An assembler was developed for loading sample TPSs into the emulated test station. Execution of sample TPSs demonstrated that the emulated components performed as in the original test station. Thus, it has been confirmed that emulation is a viable method for rehosting TPSs to newer test stations in a cost-effective manner.