  First Experiences Integrating PC Distributed I/O Into Argonne's ATLAS Control
System The roots of ATLAS (Argonne Tandem-Linac Accelerator System) date back
to the early 1960s. Located at the Argonne National Laboratory, the accelerator
has been designated a National User Facility, which focuses primarily on
heavy-ion nuclear physics. Like the accelerator it services, the control system
has been in a constant state of evolution. The present real-time portion of the
control system is based on the commercial product Vsystem [1]. While Vsystem
has always been capable of distributed I/O processing, the latest offering of
this product provides for the use of relatively inexpensive PC hardware and
software. This paper reviews the status of the ATLAS control system, and
describes first experiences with PC distributed I/O.
