July 17, 2025 • 9 mins
Shawn Tierney shares an update on the Automation Museum fundraiser, as well as some information about the A-B 1750-PMC Programmable Matrix Controller.
For information about donating to the Automation Museum, please click here.
Listen to Automation Tech Talk on The Automation Blog:
Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated)
Shawn Tierney (Host): So for an automation museum update, we're about a and I don't talk about this a lot. I should talk about this more, but we're at about 7% of our goal, which is great because we started at zero as you might have met remember. And so I just wanna thank some of these people you may recognize from, from over on LinkedIn. Larry. I wanna thank Larry for his donation.
Ryan for his donation. Lassie and Brandon, thank you all for supporting it. I'm I'm at the bottom of the list too. I was the first because I launched it. I supported it first.
I also donated the automationmuseum.org, which takes you here and, the automationmuseum.com as well to that site. That was about $35 to get those two, set up. And, what this is with the fundraising goal, there's the tier one, the $3,000. This is just to get the, the nonprofit set up and the, website set up. So I'm not gonna build the website.
I've I spent all my time building the automation school and blog and managing that. I would like, someday, I'm gonna outsource that as well. But I I just want somebody to build a basic website we can build on, and we need that, I think it's a five zero one three c so we can accept, you know, donations, and and actually, make them nonprofit. So they are, they are tax deductible. Right?
So in any case, I wanted to share that with you. So 7% of our goal, that's great. And, you know, last time when I was talking about the automation museum, I was talking about the PLC five. So today, and thanks for, Ryan, who is, is our top donor so far, he mentioned something called the seventeen fifty PMC from Rockwell Automation. Now if you don't know, that's one of Rockwell's earliest PLCs they have ever made.
I don't know much about it. Matter of fact, you know, I didn't get into this industry until 1990. So the old stuff then were PLC twos, PLC threes, 1330 threes, 1330 fives. That was kinda like the legacy stuff. And the new stuff was the PLC five and the slick 500 just coming out at that time.
And a few years later, the MicroLogic. So, so in any case, that that's kinda when I started. So I didn't get to work on, any of the, you know, original, you know, early seventies stuff. Right? So I was, I was just a baby, just a baby in the early seventies or a toddler.
But in any case, let me bring you back to here and let's take a look. Now the first official PLC, I wrote a nice article about well, I shouldn't say I wrote a nice article. I wrote an article about this over at the automation blog. You determine if it's nice or not. But in any case, I had the opportunity in my previous role of twenty five years being a certified automation specialist for a Rockwell distributor.
I had the opportunity to scan in a bunch of those early documents. Right? So, and if anybody's thrown away all their old early documents, send them to me, throw them my way. But I will take them in a donation and and, and then hand them over to the automation school, but I'm sorry. To the automation museum, where all that old stuff will go.
I do have, I don't know, a storage unit full of stuff I wanna donate. It's like all kinds of old books and manuals and brochures. But anything prior to, you know, go goes back too far. And I know, one of my libraries and one of my former employers got tossed, and and I just didn't reach out soon enough to to ask them to donate it to the museum. But in any case, I did get the scan in some of the very first POC brochures that's in that big blue binder that some of your distributors may may remember.
And if you guys have that and you're thinking to throw it away...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So for an automation museum update, we're about
a and I don't talk about this a
lot. I should talk about this more, but
we're at about 7%
of our goal, which is great because we
started at zero as you might have met
remember. And so I just wanna thank some
of these people you may recognize from,
from over on
LinkedIn.
Larry. I wanna thank Larry for his donation.
(00:23):
Ryan
for his donation.
Lassie and Brandon, thank you all for supporting
it. I'm I'm at the bottom of the
list too. I was the first because I
launched it. I supported it first. I also
donated the automationmuseum.org,
which takes you here
and, the automationmuseum.com
as well to that site. That was about
$35 to get those two,
(00:44):
set up. And, what this is with the
fundraising goal, there's the tier one, the $3,000.
This is just to get
the, the nonprofit set up and the,
website set up. So I'm not gonna build
the website. I've I spent all my time
building the automation school and blog and managing
that. I would like, someday, I'm gonna outsource
that as well. But I I just want
(01:05):
somebody to build a basic website we can
build on, and we need that, I think
it's a five zero one three c so
we can accept, you know, donations,
and and actually,
make them nonprofit. So they are, they are
tax deductible. Right? So in any case, I
wanted to share that with you. So 7%
of our goal, that's great. And, you know,
last time when I was talking about the
(01:26):
automation museum,
I was talking about the PLC five. So
today,
and thanks for,
Ryan,
who is, is our top donor so far,
he mentioned something called the seventeen fifty PMC
from Rockwell Automation.
Now if you don't know,
that's one of Rockwell's earliest PLCs they have
(01:48):
ever made.
I don't know much about it. Matter of
fact, you know, I didn't get into this
industry until 1990.
So the old stuff then were PLC twos,
PLC threes, 1330 threes, 1330 fives. That was
kinda like the legacy stuff. And the new
stuff was the PLC five and the slick
500 just coming out at that time. And
a few years later, the MicroLogic. So,
(02:08):
so in any case, that that's kinda when
I started. So I didn't get to work
on,
any of the, you know, original, you know,
early seventies stuff. Right? So I was, I
was just a baby, just a baby in
the early seventies or a toddler. But in
any case, let me bring you back
to here and let's take a look. Now
the first official PLC, I wrote a nice
(02:30):
article about well, I shouldn't say I wrote
a nice article. I wrote an article about
this over at the automation blog. You determine
if it's nice or not. But in any
case,
I had the opportunity in my previous role
of twenty five years being a certified automation
specialist for a Rockwell distributor.
I had the opportunity to scan in a
bunch of those early documents. Right? So,
(02:51):
and if anybody's thrown away all their old
early documents, send them to me, throw them
my way. But I will take them in
a donation and and, and then hand them
over to the automation school, but I'm sorry.
To the automation museum,
where all that old stuff will go. I
do have,
I don't know, a storage unit full of
stuff I wanna donate. It's like all kinds
of old books and manuals and brochures.
(03:13):
But anything prior to,
you know, go goes back too far. And
I know, one of my libraries and one
of my former employers
got tossed, and and I just didn't reach
out soon enough to to ask them to
donate it to the museum. But in any
case, I did get the scan in some
of the very first POC brochures
that's in that big blue binder that some
of your distributors may may remember. And if
(03:35):
you guys have that and you're thinking to
throw it away, send it our way. We'll
we'll preserve it in the school. Just think
of I keep saying the school, the museum.
Just think of all the things we we
could display. But in any case, this article
talks about the p d PDQ
two.
You're like you may be like, Sean,
p d q two, does that mean there
was a p d q one? Yes. But
Rockwell was only an investor in three I
(03:58):
with the p d q one. They didn't
fully own,
three I until the p d q two
came out. And, you can even see I
even include here
some of the, design and manufactured
by three I,
serviced and sold by Allen Bradley. So even
at this time in 1970,
they still had that they still didn't wholly
(04:19):
own three I. They did I think they
bought them in '71.
But in any case, so this is not
what Ryan was talking about. This is the
first one. This one had some downsides.
It was still super interesting. If you wanna
know more about it, check up here. But
this was the first Allen Bradley product that
used an XIC and an XIO.
And, you know, some people say, well, Rockwell
(04:40):
should use the standard that I you know,
the I triple you know, IEC six eleven
thirty one dash three standard. And it's like,
why? The standard came out so far later
than the actual than their PLCs. Why not
keep it the same for their customers? So
you can go either way on that. But
in any case but and and thanks to
Ryan for his lodge donation towards the Automation
(05:01):
Museum,
I wanted to pull up some of those
old brochures
and kinda show you what the $17.50 PMC
was. I believe this was the direct next
release after the PDQ two. Okay. And you
can see, actually, the program looks almost identical.
Maybe it is identical.
But you can kinda get a good look
at it there.
There's no middle ground with this zoom. Let
(05:23):
me sling all over here and see if
I can zoom out for a minute. Okay.
So you can kinda get an idea of
what it looks like here.
And
this I would love to have this in
the,
automation museum. Actually, find one of these, get
it working, and maybe even have people come
in and, like, do,
a tutorial on it, kinda go over the
history on it. I just think this would
(05:44):
be so much fun. And not just Allen
Bradley, all the different vendors. But in any
case, PMC stands for programmable matrix controller. But
right on the front of the unit, it
says programmable controller.
So,
not you know, the matrix may have referred
to the solid state memory that they were
using for the first time. I don't know.
I'm gonna be honest with you. I did
not
read this complete thing cover to cover. I
(06:05):
think it's 12 or 14 pages before, this
morning's show. But in any case, you could
see some of this here. If you're interested,
you can pause. I do not have an
article on this. I'd love to do one,
though. But, in any case,
it's very, very similar to, you know, the
the PDQ two and really, honestly,
the PLCs we have today, but it's just
old. And, let me show you a couple
(06:26):
more screens here.
And
when I scan these, I made sure I
scanned them high very, very,
high details so that we could really zoom
in on them. But in any case, so
you can see the LOTA program on the
top right, and then you can see the
instructions. This is how you would code it.
Again, you weren't drawing it physically. You were
typing it in kinda like how you would
(06:48):
type in if you were editing a wrong
in RS Logix with Studio 5,000, how you
can go in there and type on it.
That's how you would do it here. So,
you can see X I C X I
C B R T, that's branch.
Right? And then X I C X 0
E.
Right?
That's asking and and so the way you
couldn't do an x I c on an
output, which is interesting. Right? Because now we
can examine an output state, but they had
(07:11):
separate instructions.
They had the XOE to examine if an
output was energized.
And then here,
they're using a set.
Okay?
So,
I wonder if you need a reset.
This old old the second man today, of
course, you need a reset for it today.
We call that latch and unlatch.
(07:31):
Right?
And,
yeah. So that this set yeah. This set,
I'm just reading that quickly. It looks like
it's an OTE
equivalent.
So very interesting stuff there. And then we
come over here. This is a a kind
of a picture of what it looks like.
And I believe these made these programmers look
so similar to the ones for the PDQ
(07:52):
two,
but you can see they're programming an EPROM
here
and, putting in the memory board.
Seventeen fifty.
I can't read that. It looks like a
BD.
But in any case, just to give you
an idea what it would look like.
So we'd like to get one of these
in the school. Yeah. And this I did
(08:13):
it again. In the museum.
And, if we can
if we can raise that money for the
fundraiser, right,
we can at least get the five zero
one three c open. And what I wanna
do is every week, I wanna cover some
of the old stuff. I have, actually, four
things queued up that people have sent in.
I have one of those, device net meter
thingies.
(08:34):
I have a PMCK
card.
I have a old old I think I've
shown it on this on
the on the, show before. I think it's
an old square d PLC demo case, which
is really heavy and big, but it's kicking
around here under a table somewhere. And so
every week, I'll try to go over one
of those with you to talk about the
auto museum automation museum. And if you do
(08:54):
have a couple of dollars extra and you
wanna kick it towards it, we'd love to
get this off the ground so it could
be a nonprofit, and then we can go
after some of the big guys to fund
maybe exhibits in an actual building that you
could visit. So with that, I just wanna
wish you guys all an awesome weekend and
week ahead. I wanna wish you all good
health and happiness. And until next time, my
friends,
(09:15):
peace.
So for an automation museum update, we're about
a and I don't talk about this a
lot. I should talk about this more, but
we're at about 7%
of our goal, which is great because we
started at zero as you might have met
remember. And so I just wanna thank some
of these people you may recognize from,
from over on
LinkedIn.
Larry. I wanna thank Larry for his donation.
(00:23):
Ryan
for his donation.
Lassie and Brandon, thank you all for supporting
it. I'm I'm at the bottom of the
list too. I was the first because I
launched it. I supported it first. I also
donated the automationmuseum.org,
which takes you here
and, the automationmuseum.com
as well to that site. That was about
$35 to get those two,
(00:44):
set up. And, what this is with the
fundraising goal, there's the tier one, the $3,000.
This is just to get
the, the nonprofit set up and the,
website set up. So I'm not gonna build
the website. I've I spent all my time
building the automation school and blog and managing
that. I would like, someday, I'm gonna outsource
that as well. But I I just want
(01:05):
somebody to build a basic website we can
build on, and we need that, I think
it's a five zero one three c so
we can accept, you know, donations,
and and actually,
make them nonprofit. So they are, they are
tax deductible. Right? So in any case, I
wanted to share that with you. So 7%
of our goal, that's great. And, you know,
last time when I was talking about the
(01:26):
automation museum,
I was talking about the PLC five. So
today,
and thanks for,
Ryan,
who is, is our top donor so far,
he mentioned something called the seventeen fifty PMC
from Rockwell Automation.
Now if you don't know,
that's one of Rockwell's earliest PLCs they have
(01:48):
ever made.
I don't know much about it. Matter of
fact, you know, I didn't get into this
industry until 1990.
So the old stuff then were PLC twos,
PLC threes, 1330 threes, 1330 fives. That was
kinda like the legacy stuff. And the new
stuff was the PLC five and the slick
500 just coming out at that time. And
a few years later, the MicroLogic. So,
(02:08):
so in any case, that that's kinda when
I started. So I didn't get to work
on,
any of the, you know, original, you know,
early seventies stuff. Right? So I was, I
was just a baby, just a baby in
the early seventies or a toddler. But in
any case, let me bring you back
to here and let's take a look. Now
the first official PLC, I wrote a nice
(02:30):
article about well, I shouldn't say I wrote
a nice article. I wrote an article about
this over at the automation blog. You determine
if it's nice or not. But in any
case,
I had the opportunity in my previous role
of twenty five years being a certified automation
specialist for a Rockwell distributor.
I had the opportunity to scan in a
bunch of those early documents. Right? So,
(02:51):
and if anybody's thrown away all their old
early documents, send them to me, throw them
my way. But I will take them in
a donation and and, and then hand them
over to the automation school, but I'm sorry.
To the automation museum,
where all that old stuff will go. I
do have,
I don't know, a storage unit full of
stuff I wanna donate. It's like all kinds
of old books and manuals and brochures.
(03:13):
But anything prior to,
you know, go goes back too far. And
I know, one of my libraries and one
of my former employers
got tossed, and and I just didn't reach
out soon enough to to ask them to
donate it to the museum. But in any
case, I did get the scan in some
of the very first POC brochures
that's in that big blue binder that some
of your distributors may may remember. And if
(03:35):
you guys have that and you're thinking to
throw it away, send it our way. We'll
we'll preserve it in the school. Just think
of I keep saying the school, the museum.
Just think of all the things we we
could display. But in any case, this article
talks about the p d PDQ
two.
You're like you may be like, Sean,
p d q two, does that mean there
was a p d q one? Yes. But
Rockwell was only an investor in three I
(03:58):
with the p d q one. They didn't
fully own,
three I until the p d q two
came out. And, you can even see I
even include here
some of the, design and manufactured
by three I,
serviced and sold by Allen Bradley. So even
at this time in 1970,
they still had that they still didn't wholly
(04:19):
own three I. They did I think they
bought them in '71.
But in any case, so this is not
what Ryan was talking about. This is the
first one. This one had some downsides.
It was still super interesting. If you wanna
know more about it, check up here. But
this was the first Allen Bradley product that
used an XIC and an XIO.
And, you know, some people say, well, Rockwell
(04:40):
should use the standard that I you know,
the I triple you know, IEC six eleven
thirty one dash three standard. And it's like,
why? The standard came out so far later
than the actual than their PLCs. Why not
keep it the same for their customers? So
you can go either way on that. But
in any case but and and thanks to
Ryan for his lodge donation towards the Automation
(05:01):
Museum,
I wanted to pull up some of those
old brochures
and kinda show you what the $17.50 PMC
was. I believe this was the direct next
release after the PDQ two. Okay. And you
can see, actually, the program looks almost identical.
Maybe it is identical.
But you can kinda get a good look
at it there.
There's no middle ground with this zoom. Let
(05:23):
me sling all over here and see if
I can zoom out for a minute. Okay.
So you can kinda get an idea of
what it looks like here.
And
this I would love to have this in
the,
automation museum. Actually, find one of these, get
it working, and maybe even have people come
in and, like, do,
a tutorial on it, kinda go over the
history on it. I just think this would
(05:44):
be so much fun. And not just Allen
Bradley, all the different vendors. But in any
case, PMC stands for programmable matrix controller. But
right on the front of the unit, it
says programmable controller.
So,
not you know, the matrix may have referred
to the solid state memory that they were
using for the first time. I don't know.
I'm gonna be honest with you. I did
not
read this complete thing cover to cover. I
(06:05):
think it's 12 or 14 pages before, this
morning's show. But in any case, you could
see some of this here. If you're interested,
you can pause. I do not have an
article on this. I'd love to do one,
though. But, in any case,
it's very, very similar to, you know, the
the PDQ two and really, honestly,
the PLCs we have today, but it's just
old. And, let me show you a couple
(06:26):
more screens here.
And
when I scan these, I made sure I
scanned them high very, very,
high details so that we could really zoom
in on them. But in any case, so
you can see the LOTA program on the
top right, and then you can see the
instructions. This is how you would code it.
Again, you weren't drawing it physically. You were
typing it in kinda like how you would
(06:48):
type in if you were editing a wrong
in RS Logix with Studio 5,000, how you
can go in there and type on it.
That's how you would do it here. So,
you can see X I C X I
C B R T, that's branch.
Right? And then X I C X 0
E.
Right?
That's asking and and so the way you
couldn't do an x I c on an
output, which is interesting. Right? Because now we
can examine an output state, but they had
(07:11):
separate instructions.
They had the XOE to examine if an
output was energized.
And then here,
they're using a set.
Okay?
So,
I wonder if you need a reset.
This old old the second man today, of
course, you need a reset for it today.
We call that latch and unlatch.
(07:31):
Right?
And,
yeah. So that this set yeah. This set,
I'm just reading that quickly. It looks like
it's an OTE
equivalent.
So very interesting stuff there. And then we
come over here. This is a a kind
of a picture of what it looks like.
And I believe these made these programmers look
so similar to the ones for the PDQ
(07:52):
two,
but you can see they're programming an EPROM
here
and, putting in the memory board.
Seventeen fifty.
I can't read that. It looks like a
BD.
But in any case, just to give you
an idea what it would look like.
So we'd like to get one of these
in the school. Yeah. And this I did
(08:13):
it again. In the museum.
And, if we can
if we can raise that money for the
fundraiser, right,
we can at least get the five zero
one three c open. And what I wanna
do is every week, I wanna cover some
of the old stuff. I have, actually, four
things queued up that people have sent in.
I have one of those, device net meter
thingies.
(08:34):
I have a PMCK
card.
I have a old old I think I've
shown it on this on
the on the, show before. I think it's
an old square d PLC demo case, which
is really heavy and big, but it's kicking
around here under a table somewhere. And so
every week, I'll try to go over one
of those with you to talk about the
auto museum automation museum. And if you do
(08:54):
have a couple of dollars extra and you
wanna kick it towards it, we'd love to
get this off the ground so it could
be a nonprofit, and then we can go
after some of the big guys to fund
maybe exhibits in an actual building that you
could visit. So with that, I just wanna
wish you guys all an awesome weekend and
week ahead. I wanna wish you all good
health and happiness. And until next time, my
friends,
(09:15):
peace.
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