Migration of legacy test programs to modern programming environments

As we prepare to enter the new millennium, very valuable software programs written decades ago have become antiquated as new hardware has been developed and as software theories and management theories have changed. One area of software that has been greatly affected by these changes is the area of test programs (TPs). These programs often contain tens of thousands of lines of code and have been written in computer languages that have been in existence for almost half a century. This class of so-called legacy program code is written in such languages as ATLAS, BASIC, JOVIAL, FORTRAN, etc. Now with a dwindling defense budget and an increased availability of lower cost commercially based test instruments utilizing components based on VXI/PXI technology, re-hosting of legacy test programs onto new test platforms is an attractive alternative to writing new software. In this way major industries such as the military and avionics manufacturers can take advantage of COTS tools for building their new test systems. These tools include PC plug-in boards, VXI/IVI plug-play instrument drivers, and LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI test software tools, etc. This migration affords the industries the benefits from the high volumes, lower prices and better worldwide compatibility and support that are common with COTS tools. Unfortunately, any migration to modern programming environments has to consider either rewriting very valuable legacy computer software or manually converting it, both prospects being extremely time consuming and expensive because of the magnitude of the task. Thus, there is a need for a conversion tool that can accept legacy software, and produce software in a language or dialect that is compatible with the modern software environments (e.g., LabWindows/CVI, LabVIEW, Visual Basic, Visual C++, and new versions of ATLAS). This paper highlights the features and benefits of such a tool.