The New Profil Language

The New Profil Language

The New Profil language was defined by Mr. Serge Haefelfinger, former president of D.P. Digital Precision Inc.

I have implemented the compiler from the work of two previous programmers. I also wrote the user manual (that you will find at the end of this post).

The compiler accepts as input a New Profil program and outputs a very concise Robofil ISO program.

As a C programmer can write applications for a computer without knowing about the machine language that is specific to the processor on which the applications will run, the NC programmer using the New Profil language does not need to know about the ISO codes language that is used on a particular wire EDM CNC.

Before we had the graphic workstations, the New Profil language was use to write all of our part programs.  The language resembles IBM’s APT but incorporates many new features that are quite useful when the programming of parts is done in a textual environment (using VT100 terminals for example).

Key Features of the New Profil Language

• Fast I/O and computations
• Conciseness in the ISO output• ISO in implicit or explicit decimal format
• Geometric points, lines, and circles can be defined, computed and used in programming
• Machine’s movements can be specified with minimal information
• Automatic radius (fillets)
• Concise syntax
• Real type variables
• Predefined variaobles
• String variables
• Mathematical expressions
• Automatic tangency indicators
• Coordinate selectors
• Last entities: P99, L99, C99, …
• All Major Words are implemented
• Automatic offsets
• Program validation (tests of correctness)
• Zero length segments support
• Elimination of superimposed segments
• Change of taper angle
• Change of offset

The owner of the plant, a man from Swiss origins named Serge Heafelfinger, he founded D.P. Digital Precision in 1976. Its first equipment was three models Charmilles F45 wire EDM machines. At this time, this machining method was unique and avant-gardist. In fact, D.P. Digital Precision Inc. was the first company in Quebec to introduce wire EDM machining.

He had developed a geometry program using the Basic language on a TRS-80 computer. After that, a programmer named Réal Pepin implemented the routines in Pascal on WICAT Computers. After that, another programmer named Michel Blanchard continued the work because Réal Pepin died suddenly (from a poisoning, I think).

The first project I worked on was to modify the NP3 language so that it could generate ISO codes.

The programmers (NC programmers) had at their disposition two PDP-11 mini-computers.

Picture 1. A PDP-11 shown with paper DEC LA36 DECwriter II Terminal and a cathode ray tube terminal.

The NC programmers  also used two WICAT System 155 with Vision 2000 terminals (VT-100 compatible with added features such as multiple page switching).

The New Profile Language Reference Manual (in French)

The New Profil Language - Reference Manual in French.

Note: The manual is a Word document and it contains a lot of drawings made in Word. If you preview the document from my Google Drive, the graphics won't display. You need to download the document to your computer in order to see them in the document.