EDITOR FACILITIES FOR SMALL LABORATORY AUTOMATION COMPUTERS OPERATING IN A VIRTUAL MACHINE ENVIRONMENT.

In a proposed technique for laboratory automation, a small automation computer acts as a master station that communicates with a host system virtual machine. Within the small computer, one or more users are performing laboratory automation or process control tasks. A technique is described that enables the invoking of an editor such as the VM/CMS-Editor through the laboratory automation arrangement. In implementing this technique, a laboratory automation (VM LABS/7) utility program suitable termed EDIT communicates through a teleprocessing virtual machine, suitably termed TPVM to the user's virtual machine, running a CMS-Editor. This Editor employs standard minidisk file communication procedures for I/O operations. The EDITOR support is available to multiple users on the small automation computers in parallel to the controlled experiments, and in parallel to other DP-communication tasks.