Intelligent Motion Control Since 1987

What's New in the Motion Control API
C and C# sample programs

The Motion Control API (MCAPI) now includes native support for Microsoft Windows Professional x64 Edition and 64-bit Linux. Both 64-bit and 32-bit PMC application programs and utilities can now run side-by-side on a 64-bit operating system.

Support for Microsoft .NET 2.0 applications is now also available to programmers of PMC's motion control cards, including IntelliSense context sensitive popup help and autocomplete functionality to significantly speed software development in Visual Studio.
.NET and Win logos
  • Native support is now available for 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows on Intel EMT (extended memory technology) and AMD x64 processors. On 64-bit systems 32-bit application support is installed in parallel with 64-bit application support, allowing existing 32-bit applications to run without modification.
  • .NET application support is provided via a .NET 2.0 assembly. This assembly, McapiNet.dll, neatly encapsulates the Motion Control API and Motion Dialogs in .NET class libraries. .NET exception based error handling simplifies error checking. IntelliSense online help for Motion Control API variables and functions is integrated seamlessly with the Visual Studio IDE. IntelliSense offers a type of "intelligent" autocomplete for quick and convenient access to variable names, functions and parameter lists. It allows significantly faster software development by reducing references to external documentation as well as the amount of keyboard input. ( View Illustration of IntelliSense auto-complete help.) Programmers familiar with the Motion Control API will find the .NET class libraries familiar and .NET programmers will appreciate the native support. A sample program written in C#, with source, is included. See also TechNote #1064 "Programming Support for the .NET Platform on Windows."
  • Performance enhancements have sped up the processing of some commands by as much as 10%.
  • The WinCtl terminal interface program has been reworked to speed up text display and allow for more powerful line editing.

Linux logos
  • The Linux package now supports building on 64-bit versions of Linux as well as 32-bit versions. Sample programs and utilities are 64-bit compatible as well.
  • The MCAPI driver scripts have been reworked to be more cross platform compatible and now work cleanly with SuSE (Novell) Linux without impacting the already strong support for the Fedora and Redhat Linux distros. In addition, the new scripts background the firmware load process, speeding boot time.
  • Tested with popular distros including Fedora, Redhat, SUSE and Ubuntu.
  • Man pages have been added for the utility programs.
  • The C/C++ dynamic linking headers and source files for MCAPI applications are now Linux friendly.
  • Performance enhancements have sped up the processing of some commands by as much as 10%.

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