Greetings! 1998 was a banner year for TYX products and services. The PAWS Developer's Studio distribution grew substantially and was part of many innovative ATS solutions. PAWS Developer's Studio was included in ManTech's solution for the USMC's Third Echelon Test Set (TETS), Lockheed Martin's solution for the US Navy's Re-configurable transportable (RT) CASS station, Northrop Grumman's IFTE CEE for the US Army and Southwest Research Institute's (SwRI's) update for the US Air Force's Gyro ATE suite. The Developer's Studio facilitates vast improvements in the TPS development process. Many users have claimed that it has radically improved their TPS development and maintenance capabilities.

On the Run Time front, TYX has been very active in integrating the latest in software technology to add features to the RTS. This includes remote and distributed processing and control capabilities, and other ATS applications. The C wrapper function capability has given the station developer the capability to more readily utilize existing instrument drivers and to modify them, without totally re-writing them.

The Next Generation of tools has taken flight in the form of the Adaptive, Re-configurable Test System Software (ARTS). TYX is part of an innovative team lead by Aeroflex/Lintek that is developing an advanced virtual RF test system for Hughes Space and Communications (HSC) in El Segundo, CA. HSC produces many sophisticated satellites for military and commercial uses and requires the most efficient ATS approaches available. An overview of ARTS is provided in this newsletter and more information is available on our web site, http://www.tyx.com.

TYX's re-host and migration efforts continued with support for programs such as the US Air Force's ADINTS ATE at Boeing Metrology and Guidance Center in Newark, OH, and several missile and avionics programs at Warner Robins ALC, Warner Robins, GA, Ogden ALC, Utah and Oklahoma ALC in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

We are delighted that a number of our customers have recently upgraded their older systems on the account of the Year 2000 (Y2K) bug being prevalent in either their Operating Systems or, occasionally, on their platforms. PAWS itself has been certified as being Y2K compliant with the Release 3.14.1 and above. This should prompt some of you with older releases to take a second look as the new millenium is fast approaching. TYX and our subsidiary Access Research Corporation, stand ready to provide you with turnkey solutions to this problem, including Validation and Verification of all your Test Programs (TPS’).

A series of improvements to the Developer’s Studio are planned this year. Some of the improvements include a Flexible Project Manager, Resource Driver Library (RDL), sound file association, and user configurable Data Logger properties. Please visit our web site to see the latest P3I on PAWS.

TestBase is a graphical test preparation tool, with database storage capabilities that allows the user to visually build the Test Strategy using a set of existing Test Programs as building blocks.

The Features of the present implementation are:

• allows the organization of Tests into a sequential Test Strategy, graphically represented by a tree of Tests
• supports code reuse, by decoupling the Test Strategy from the Test Programs
• allows the editing and database storage of Test Preparation Data, in the form of Parameter Values that may be flexibly attached to Tests
• Provides a reporting tool for generation of custom reports

TestBase® Explorer

ARTS utilizes the TestBase product as the basis for test program development and re-use. Re-use at the requirements level is far superior to re-use at the source code level in most test program applications. Re-use at the source level requires that the language and many times the platform remain the same, for re-use to be effective. A virtual version of the unit under test's (UUT's) requirements objects can be utilized to create a test program in other environments. The test object library can be used to effectively re-use the requirements previously generated and thereby enhancing test program developer's productivity.

ARTS allows the user a choice of tools to integrate with and at what level the integration takes place. The open architecture of the ARTS concept allows for radical adaptation for a wide variety of application environments. ARTS is utilizing many software standards including Active X, Java, HTML, Windows and many others.

Given the dizzying pace of technology improvements, our R&D staff stepped back and thoroughly analyzed the entire Run Time System product line. This led them to the conclusion that we further modularise the product (components is the buzz word). This led to the natural extension that we can through the use of component technology, provide the user with more bang for the buck as the RTS would integrate better with the components of the Information Super Highway. Some of the benefits envisioned include:

• Multi-platform, Multi-language support including Voice activation of commands
• User customisable GUI (JAVA, Visual Basic, Native etc.)
• HTML (IETM) User Presentations
• Distributed Instrumentation Controls
• Back-end processors, viz. QUOTIS®

There are quite a few re-hosts under way at Press time. In Japan, the Missile Project has currently completed re-validation of about 60% of the TPS on the COTS HP Tester. In Europe, we have a number of re-host initiatives under way, with a couple of proof-of-concepts thrown in for good measure. On a couple of programs our Distributors have had to rapidly prove the inherent flexibility within PAWS. They have been able to migrate TPS from other environments to PAWS while preserving the existing investment such as the ITA and the Instrument Driver(s). This is of course the vaunted ‘re-use’ which one hears a lot of banter about in the marketplace, whereas PAWS makes the re-use process a snap.

We are leading off this year’s series in March with a meeting in the UK hosted by Apsys, our UK Distributor. This is being held on March 8, in conjunction with an eXpress/STAT User Group meeting being held the previous Friday March 5. This gives those lucky enough to attend both, a weekend in London!

This is to be followed by a series of PUG meetings in Japan. The last couple of years, our Japanese Distributors, Y-MAX Systems Inc, have held one meeting in the Tokyo area. Due to increased customer demand, they have revised the schedule to hold three separate meetings in Nagoya, Osaka, and Tokyo! These meetings are currently scheduled for the May/June time period.

As usual, we are planning the US PUG meeting to be held around AutoTestcon which is going to be in San Antonio this year. The tentative date for the PUG in the US is August 30 and we plan to host this at the San Antonio facilities of our subsidiary, Access Research Corporation.

Last but not least, there is always the Munich meeting around Oktoberfest!