The LANSCE control system current state and upgrade outlook

The LANSCE (Los Alamos Neutron Science Center) runs its LINAC control system based on 30(+) year old technology. While some peripheral upgrades have been made over the years, the control system will need some major improvements over the next five years in order to continue to support the user facility's mission. The proposed multi-million dollar LANSCE-R (Refurbishment) project creates a unique opportunity to upgrade the existing control system. We intend to use the EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) control system with the following goals for effective control at modest cost: (1) Replacing our VMS based MicroVAXes; (2) Replacing the RICE (Remote Instrumentation and Control Equipment) subsystem with Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) to handle regular data acquisition and control, and custom hardware to handle "flavored" data acquisition; (3) Replacing the Master Timer subsystem with a modern event system; (4) Converting Fortran programs running on VAX/VMS computers to Java Programs running on Linux-based desktop PCs. The boundary condition, as usual, is that we must implement these major changes on a running accelerator.