what an old 6200 mix_plant in the new old face RSLogix :)
First time I wrote the program using AI 6200 Logistic, paired with WinLinx and RSView32 back in 1997 — running on a Windows 95 box that hummed louder than the panel cabinet itself. Every rung, every coil, every timer was typed line by line, no drag and drop, no tag browser. Just pure ladder logic and patience.
In those days, uploading to a PLC-5/40E felt like talking to a living thing. When the RUN light blinked steady, it meant trust. When the outputs latched without fault, it meant pride. And when the whole plant came alive — pumps roaring, mixers humming, the mimic diagram dancing green and red — that was the sound of achievement.
I remember carrying a long serial cable, connecting to the processor through DF1, and holding my breath each time "Comms Initialized" appeared on screen. There were no cloud backups, no version control — only floppy disks labeled by hand and the quiet faith that Mr. Never Fail would live up to his name.
Seven years later I reopened the same project in RSLogix, RSLinx and RSView. It was like meeting an old friend wearing a new uniform — the same logic, same heartbeat, but wrapped in a Windows UI. I think no one remember about old AI 6200 Ladder Logistic anymore, but for some of us, those green lines and square coils still whisper stories of the factory floor — of engineers who coded with patience, coffee, and courage.
EDITORIAL NOTE 2025:
This editorial note was written thirty years after the first rung compiled. When logic met learning, and code found consciousness.
In those silent years between relay hums and AI prompts, the language of control never truly changed.
It only learned to dream. What began as ladder rungs — drawn with patience, current, and purpose —
has now become a living syntax that flows through neural networks.
Yet beneath all the abstraction, the rhythm is still the same: input, process, output.
Back then, engineers spoke to machines with timers and coils;
today, we speak through algorithms and embeddings.
But both are acts of trust — that somewhere within the circuitry, logic will awaken and obey.
The console may have changed, but the devotion remains.
This note marks not an ending, but a resonance —
a quiet echo from the age of AI 6200 Logistic to the dawn of artificial intuition.
The same faith that powered a PLC-5/40E still hums within today’s silicon minds.
Only the interface has evolved — from rungs to reasoning, from logic to learning.
— Written in 2025, by an engineer who still believes that even in the age of AI,
every line of code is a conversation between man, machine, and memory.
When Ladder Met AI
It has been decades since I last opened that old mix_plant project. The smell of flux solder, the hum of a 24VDC bus, the flicker of a CRT monitor — all still alive somewhere inside my memory. Back in 1995, I wrote my first complete control program using AI Ladder Logistic 6200, a DOS-based world where every rung was typed like a prayer, and every compile felt like lighting a candle for the machine to understand.
By 1997, I migrated everything to the all-Windows environment using RSLogix. It felt like civilization itself had taken one bold step forward. The gray screens turned to color, the ladder symbols glowed smoother, and my old PLC-5/40E stood proud, breathing through WinLinx and RSView32. I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of my own digital awakening.
Those were the days when automation was an art form — not drag-and-drop, but discipline and instinct. I still remember mapping input bits to production databases, linking process variables into Planning Production Control, and writing early GUI panels so that the Control Room could speak to the Directors’ Office upstairs. Each connection was a bridge between worlds: the noise of relays below, and the quiet hum of decision-making above.
We didn’t call it IoT back then. We just called it “making things talk.” The PLC spoke to the PC, the PC spoke to the operator, and somehow — through logic and patience — the entire plant listened.
Now, in the age of cloud and AI, I sometimes open that same ladder again. It still compiles. It still runs. Only now the hum of the processor is replaced by the whisper of a neural net. But deep down, the feeling is the same — that quiet pride of giving structure to chaos, one rung at a time.
— Written by someone who still believes that Ladder Logic is not just code, but poetry drawn in electric lines.