EPICS Controls Argonne National Laboratory

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Recent News

This page is for news about EPICS and/or changes to this site. If you wish to report a news item that should appear here, send it to Andrew Johnson (edit punctuation in that email address to make it work). I may add items that are reported on tech-talk which I believe are significant, but I don't promise that everything the community does will be found here unless the organizers ask me.

15-DEC-2023: EPICS 7.0.8 released

EPICS version 7.0.8 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read all the individual Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this version.

30-Nov-2023: Spring 2023 EPICS Meeting announced

The Pohang Accelerator Laboratory will be hosting the Spring EPICS Collaboration Meeting 2024 in-person in Pohang, Korea from April 15th to April 18th, at the POSCO International Center in POSTECH. More details will be made available on this Indico website, with announcements on tech-talk.

31-Aug-2023: October 2023 EPICS Meeting announced

An EPICS Collaboration Meeting will be held as part of the ICALEPCS 2023 conference in Cape Town, SA on October 8, 2023. This one day meeting will have a limited number of 15 minute talks scheduled. Topics may include EPICS 7 developments, user interfaces and tools, approaches to meeting cyber and other government requirements (e.g. IPv6) in EPICS, hybrid systems (running EPICS with a legacy control system) and other related topics.

17-Jan-2023: 2023 EPICS Codeathon to be hosted at Diamond

The next EPICS Codeathon will be held in-person at Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire, England from March 7-10th. For more information see the codeathon page here.

7-Sep-2022: EPICS 7.0.7 released

EPICS version 7.0.7 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read all the individual Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this version.

27-Jun-2022: Fall EPICS Meeting announced

The Fall 2022 EPICS Collaboration Meeting will be held in-person in Ljubljana, Slovenia from September 21-23 (Wed-Fri), hosted jointly by Cosylab and the Jožef Stefan Institute. The usual associated workshops and working group meetings will take place on 19-20 September.

23-Mar-2022: Spring 2022 Codeathon to be hosted at SLAC

The next EPICS Codeathon will be a hybrid event, hosted in-person at SLAC but also welcoming virtual participants. For more information see the codeathon page here and/or the event website which also has a registration link.

6-Oct-2021: EPICS 7.0.6.1 released

EPICS version 7.0.6.1 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read all the individual Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this version.

3-Jul-2021: EPICS 7.0.6 released

EPICS version 7.0.6 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read all the individual Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this version.

27-Jun-2021: Base R3.15.9 released

EPICS Base version 3.15.9 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release.

28-May-2021: Spring 2021 Meeting Rescheduled

The Spring 2021 EPICS Collaboration meeting will now be held virtually from 6-9 July 2021, hosted by the Controls and Instrumentation Development group at the Canadian Light Source. Live presentations will run from 14:00 UTC to 18:00 UTC each day and will be recorded. Q&A sessions are also being planned for later in the day to give attendees in other timezones who view the recordings a chance to meet and ask questions. The meeting website now provides more details including registration. Registrations and abstract submissions for the earlier dates remain valid.

28-Feb-2021: EPICS 7.0.5 released

EPICS version 7.0.5 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read all the individual Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this version.

14-Aug-2020: EPICS 7.0.4.1 released

EPICS version 7.0.4.1 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read all the individual Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this version.

28-May-2020: EPICS 7.0.4 released

EPICS version 7.0.4 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read all the individual Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this version.

15-May-2020: Base R3.15.8 released

EPICS Base version 3.15.8 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release. Extra Record Reference documentation is now included!

1-Nov-2019: EPICS 7.0.3.1 released

EPICS version 7.0.3.1 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read all the updated Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this release. New — Record Reference documentation is now built in!

31-Oct-2019: Base R3.15.7 released

EPICS Base version 3.15.7 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release. New — Record Reference documentation is now built in!

31-Jul-2019: EPICS 7.0.3 released

EPICS version 7.0.3 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the updated Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this release.

23-Apr-2019: EPICS 7.0.2.2 released

EPICS version 7.0.2.2 is now available for download, a patch release. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the updated Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this release.

20-Mar-2019: EPICS 7.0.2.1 released

EPICS version 7.0.2.1 is now available for download, a patch release. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the updated Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this release.

18-Dec-2018: EPICS 7.0.2 released

EPICS version 7.0.2 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the various different Release Notes documents to see the changes included in this release.

12-Dec-2018: Base R3.16.2 released

EPICS Base version 3.16.2 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release. This will be the last release in the 3.16 series, bleading-edge users are advised to move to releases in the 7.0 series in the future.

11-Oct-2018: Base R3.15.6 released

EPICS Base version 3.15.6 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release.

14-Sep-2018: Base R3.14.12.8 released

Base-3.14.12.8 is now available for download. Please be sure to read the Release Notes. This was the final release in the Base-3.14 series, which is now unsupported; no future releases or patches will be published for this series, please upgrade to either the Base-3.15 or EPICS-7.0 series.

31-Aug-2018: New EPICS-Controls Website Announced

The EPICS Community has taken on the task of developing their own Home Page, which can now be found at https://epics-controls.org. This website hosted at Argonne will not be going away though, it will continue to host the mailing lists and provide an archive for some of the older extensions and support modules that are no longer being actively maintained or updated. Some pages will probably be replaced by redirects to the new site, but it will continue to host the software produced and maintained by the APS.

03-Jul-2018: November 2018 Meeting Announced

The next EPICS Collaboration Meeting (fall 2018 in the northern hemisphere) will be held from 12-16 November and will be hosted by ANSTO and the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne, Australia. Check the meeting website for more details.

16-Apr-2018: Registration for the June 2018 Meeting Open

The registration website for the June 2018 EPICS collaboration meeting is now open and taking registrations for attendees as well as for exhibitors and sponsors. Please register by the end of May.

15-Dec-2017: EPICS 7.0.1.1 and Base-3.14.12.7 released

Both EPICS 7.0.1.1 and Base-3.14.12.7 are now available for download. Visit the appropriate release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes. Documentation may continue to be updated over the next few days or even weeks. Note that modules written for earlier EPICS releases may require changes to build and work correctly against EPICS 7.

02-Jun-2017: Base R3.16.1 released

EPICS Base R3.16.1 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes. Documentation may continue to be updated over the next few days. Note that modules written for Base 3.15.x may require some changes to build correctly against 3.16.1.

30-Jan-2017: Spring 2017 Meeting announced

The Spring 2017 EPICS collaboration meeting will be hosted by the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute (KURRI) near Osaka (not Kyoto!), Japan from 15 - 19 May.

13-Dec-2016: Base R3.14.12.6 and R3.15.5 released

EPICS Base versions 3.14.12.6 and 3.15.5 are now available for download. Visit those release pages for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in each release.

30-Jun-2016: Fall 2016 Meeting announced

The Fall 2016 EPICS collaboration meeting will be hosted by the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA from 19 - 23 September.

27-May-2016: Base R3.15.4 released

EPICS Base version 3.15.4 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release.

3-Mar-2016: Base 3.16.0.1 released

EPICS Base version 3.16.0.1 is now available for download and testing. Visit the release page for details. This is a developer release which is not recommended for use in production environments, but is provided to allow testing of the new features and functionality. Please read the Release Notes to find out about the changes in this release.

17-Feb-2016: Spring 2016 Meeting announced

The Spring 2016 EPICS collaboration meeting will be hosted by the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund, Sweden from 24 - 27 May.

24-Nov-2015: Base R3.15.3 released

EPICS Base version 3.15.3 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release.

14-May-2015: Base R3.15.2 released

EPICS Base version 3.15.2 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release.

24-Mar-2015: Base R3.14.12.5 released

EPICS Base version 3.14.12.5 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release.

01-Dec-2014: Base R3.15.1 released

EPICS Base R3.15.1 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes. Documentation may continue to be updated over the next few days. Note that modules written for Base 3.14.12 may require some changes to build correctly against 3.15.1.

17-Nov-2014: Spring 2015 Meeting announced

The Spring 2015 EPICS collaboration meeting will be hosted by the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University from 18 - 22 May.

10-Mar-2014: Spring 2014 Meeting announced

The website for the Spring 2014 EPICS collaboration meeting from 19 - 23 May at the Institute of Modern Physics in Lanzhou, China is now open for registration.

17-Dec-2012: Base R3.14.12.3 released

EPICS Base version 3.14.12.3 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes about the changes in this release.

21-Aug-2012: Fall 2012 Meeting registration

The website for the next EPICS collaboration meeting at the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory in South Korea is now open for registration.

01-Jan-2012: Spring 2012 Meeting announced

Ernest Williams announced that the next EPICS collaboration meeting will be held on site at SLAC in Menlo Park, California from April 23-27. More information will be posted at the meeting website.

12-Dec-2011: Base R3.14.12.2 released

EPICS Base R3.14.12.2 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes. Documentation may continue to be updated over the next few days.

24-Nov-2010: Base R3.14.12 released

EPICS Base R3.14.12 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes. Documentation may continue to be updated over the next few days.

23-Dec-2009: Spring 2010 Meetings announced

Franck Di Maio announced that the next EPICS meeting will be hosted by the ITER organization in Aix-en-Provence from 31st May 2010 to 4th June 2010. The meeting format will be the usual 2 days of tutorials and SIGs followed by a 3-day meeting. More information at the meeting website.

The third annual EPICS Codeathon will take place at Diamond (UK) the week preceeding the collaboration meeting.

15-Oct-2009: ICALEPCS Lifetime Achievement Awards

The ICALEPCS International Scientific Advisory Committee presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Marty Kraimer, Bob Dalesio and Jeff Hill at the ICALEPCS 2009 meeting, for their work on the creation, development, and nurturing of the EPICS control system toolkit and the EPICS collaboration. More details from the ICALEPCS 2009 website, or watch this YouTube video (embedded below).

07-Oct-2009: LCLS thanks the EPICS and RTEMS communities

Patrick Krejcik wrote to thank the EPICS and RTEMS communities for helping the LCLS project to pass the major milestone of delivering beam to their first user experiments.

28-Aug-2009: Base R3.14.11 released

EPICS Base R3.14.11 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and be sure to read the Release Notes. Documentation may continue to be updated over the next few days.

27-Oct-2008: Base R3.14.10 released

EPICS Base R3.14.10 is now available for download. Visit the release page for details, and make sure to read the Release Notes. Documentation will continue to be updated over the next few days.

15-Sep-2008: Base R3.14.10-pre1 available

R3.14.10-pre1 is the first of a series of pre-release versions of Base leading up to a R3.14.10 release once we've worked all of the bugs out of it. These releases are intended for testing on as many architectures as possible, so if you build your own version of Base and have a slightly unusual system, please give us a hand by tring it out and reporting your results to the core-talk mailing list.

05-Feb-2007: Base R3.14.9 released

EPICS Base R3.14.9 is now available for download - see the Release page for details.

26-Jan-2007: Base R3.14.9-RC1 available

R3.14.9-RC1 is now available, and the EPICS core developers would like to invite anyone to try out this release and report any problems found to either the tech-talk or core-talk mailing lists. If there are no reported problems, the final R3.14.9 release will be published on February 5th.

05-Dec-2006: EPICS meeting at DESY in April 2007

Matthias Clausen announced some information about the next EPICS meeting, which will be at DESY in Hamburg, Germany, from 23-27 April, 2007. More details should be published here in January.

20-Nov-2006: Base R3.14.9-pre1 available

R3.14.9-pre1 is the first of a series of pre-release versions of Base leading up to a R3.14.9 release once we've worked all of the bugs out of it. These releases are intended for testing on as many architectures as possible, so if you build your own version of Base and have a slightly unusual system, please give us a hand by tring it out and reporting your results to the core-talk mailing list.

USPAS 2007: EPICS Control Systems

The next USPAS-organized EPICS course will be held in Houston, Texas from January 15-19, 2007.

13-Jul-2006: Australian Synchrotron First Light from 1mA at 3GeV

Steven M. Banks and Richard Farnsworth reported: At a ridiculous hour (3:15 a.m.) on Friday 14th July 2006, first light was observed from a 3 GeV 1mA stored beam in the Australian Synchrotron Storage Ring.

09-Jun-2006: Australian Synchrotron achieves First Turn(s)

Richard Farnsworth and Steven M. Banks report: At 23:51 on June 8, 2006 first turn was achieved in the Storage Ring at the Australian Synchrotron. Full energy electrons (3 GeV) were extracted from the Booster Ring, passed through the Booster to Storage Ring Transfer Line and injected into the Storage Ring. Three hours later 4 turns were observed following tuning of the quadrupole magnets. The control system for the synchrotron is almost completely based on EPICS, and the Controls Team would like to thank all those in the EPICS community who have given their time, advice and code in contributing to this success.

30-May-2006: Diamond accumulates beam in storage ring

Mark Heron reports: "an accumulated beam current of 2mA, at an energy of 700MeV, was achieved in the Diamond Storage Ring on Tuesday 30th May. ... During the past year Diamond has commissioned the Linac and Booster Synchrotron, which have also gone very well. In all cases, EPICS has performed to meet and exceed our requirements. Hence, the Control Systems has been a major asset in enabling effective commissioning to take place. Again another success for EPICS."

28-Apr-2006: SNS Beam on target, CD4 milestone reached

More good news from Dave Gurd: "This afternoon at 2:09pm EDT first beam was delivered to the SNS Target. It took about a dozen single shot minipulses to see the first scintillations on a view screen mounted on the target - 5E+10 protons/ pulse." By three quarters of an hour later they were at ten times that intensity, and in in hour and a half: "We have now reached and exceeded the commissioning 'CD4' milestone for protons/pulse on target, and exceeded by a factor of eight the neutron production efficiency!! Truly unbelievable!!"

10-Apr-2006: TRIUMF ISAC-II beam

Rolf Keitel reports "On April 10, the ISAC-II facility accelerated a 40C (10+) beam through the new superconducting linac (20 superconducting RF cavities) to 220 MeV (5.5 MeV/u). This achieved the last mile-stone of a five-year development program, which was carried out in parallel to the routine running of the ISAC-I radioactive beam facility."

04-Apr-2006: June 2006 Collaboration meeting announced

An EPICS Collaboration meeting will be held at Argonne National Laboratory just outside Chicago, Illinois from June 13-16, 2006, with several Special Interest Group workshops being held on June 12th and 13th. More details can be found on the meeting website. Note that because of Argonne site security, advanced registration by May 24th is essential to be able to attend this meeting.

17-Jan-2006: Beam Extracted from SNS Ring

Dave Gurd seems to be happy: "Starting Friday evening with 930 MeV beam at the end of the superconducting linac, the SNS team managed this weekend to bring that beam to the linac injection dump, then inject a few turns into the Ring and circulate those turns for a thousand orbits and then extract about ten turns into the extraction dump with a clear signal on a beam current monitor there." More...

06-Jan-2006: Base R3.14.8.2 released

EPICS Base R3.14.8.2 is now available for download - see the R3.14.8 page for details.

20-Dec-2005: Base R3.14.8.1 released

EPICS Base R3.14.8.1 is now available for download - see the R3.14.8 page for details.

01-Dec-2005: Base R3.14.8 now available

EPICS Base R3.14.8 is now available for download - see the R3.14.8 page for details.

22-Jul-2005: October 2005 Collaboration meeting announced

An EPICS Collaboration meeting will be held on the 6th and 7th of October in Archamps (France), close to the Swiss border near Geneva. This is just before the ICALEPCS 2005 conference, which is being held in downtown Geneva. More details at the meeting website.

23-Feb-2005: April 2005 Collaboration meeting announced

An EPICS Collaboration meeting will be held in conjunction with LCLS at SLAC in Menlo Park California, from April 27 to 29. More details at the meeting website.

06-Dec-2004: Base R3.14.7 now available

EPICS Base R3.14.7 is now available for download - see the R3.14.7 page for details.

19-Aug-2004: December 2004 Collaboration meeting announced

The Winter 2004 Asian EPICS meeting will be held near JAERI in Tokai, Japan, from December 8th to 10th. There are no plans for EPICS training sessions at this meeting, which will otherwise follow the normal format of short presentations and discussion. The meeting will be held at the RICOTTI conference facility close to the JAERI-Tokai Laboratory and the JR-Tokai station, and will include a tour of J-PARC which is now under construction in the JAERI-Tokai Laboratory under collaboration between JAERI and KEK. More information is available at the meeting website.

12-Aug-2004: Channel Access Protocol Specification published

Under contract from the Swiss Light Source, CosyLab have published the Channel Access Protocol Specification, using the GNU Free Documentation License.

30-Jun-2004: Website reorganization

This website has been reorganized slightly, moving the pages for EPICS Base into their own top level directory (they used to be found inside the Modules area), and adding a new area for EPICS distributions. Please notify me of any broken links you find or other content that needs to be updated which I may have missed.

28-May-2004: Base R3.14.6 now available

EPICS Base R3.14.6 is now available for download - see the R3.14.6 page for details.

15-Apr-2004: Base R3.13.10 now available

EPICS Base R3.13.10 is now available for download - see the R3.13 page for details.

11-Feb-2004: May 2004 Collaboration meeting

The Spring 2004 collaboration meeting will be held at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico from May 5th to 7th, with an evening reception on May 4th. Participants are requested to stay at the conference hotel - it makes the conference room free and keeps us from needing registration fees. The room rate is reasonable for Santa Fe. For more information and to register for the meeting, visit the meeting website.

04-Feb-2004: EPICS Base is truly Open Source

All versions of EPICS Base have now been made publicly available without restriction - the EAR-99 export restrictions no longer apply, so the code has been relicensed using the EPICS Open License.

04-Feb-2004: Base R3.14.5 now available

EPICS Base R3.14.5 is now available for download - see the R3.14.5 page for details.

24-Sep-2003: Base R3.14.4 now available

EPICS Base R3.14.4 is now available for download - see the R3.14.4 page for details.

04-Sep-2003: Base R3.14.3 now available

EPICS Base R3.14.3 is now available for download - see the R3.14.3 page for details.

20-Aug-2003: Base R3.13.9 now available

EPICS Base R3.13.9 is now available for download - see the R3.13 page for details.

5-Aug-2003: October 2003 Collaboration meeting

The EPICS collaboration meeting at ICALEPCS 2003 has been scaled down in order to avoid overlapping with topics presented at the ICALEPCS meeting itself. This will now be a one day EPICS meeting taking place on Sunday, October 12th.

22-May-2003: Base R3.14.2 now available

EPICS Base R3.14.2 is now available for download - see the R3.14.2 page for details.

14-Feb-2003: June 2003 Collaboration meeting

The Summer 2003 EPICS collaboration meeting will be hosted by the Diamond Project and will take place in The Cosener's House, Abingdon, Oxfordshire (UK) from the 18th to 20th of June. Further details are available from the Diamond website.

5-Feb-2003: Base R3.13.8 now available

EPICS Base R3.13.8 is now available for download - see the R3.13 page for details.

20-Dec-2002: Base R3.14.1 now available

EPICS Base R3.14.1 is now available for download - see the R3.14.1 page for details.

30-Sep-2002: November 2002 Collaboration meeting

The Autumn 2002 EPICS Collaboration Meeting will be held at Jefferson Lab on November 19th - 22nd. More details and a registration form are available on the meeting website.

26-Jul-2002: Base R3.13.7 now available

EPICS Base R3.13.7 is now available for download under the new EPICS license scheme - see the R3.13 page for details. R3.14.0beta2 will also be available very soon.

18-Jul-2002: CVS Snapshots of Base now available

Nightly snapshots of the latest R3.13.x and R3.14.x code checked into CVS are now available for download from the password-protected Base Download area of this website. If you or your institution haven't yet signed up for a new EPICS Base license then this might be a good reason to do so.

12-Jun-2002: Bug Tracking database added

An bug tracking database has been added to this site, using the PHP application Mantis. Anyone can view the current list of bugs, but to report them you need to create an account. Assuming this facility is felt to be useful, any collaborative EPICS project is welcome to be added to the list of projects.

23-Apr-2002: New licensing scheme announced

EPICS licensing is being changed and will be more open in the future, although it is not yet possible to release EPICS Base as open source. See the new licensing pages for more details.

18-Mar-2002: Base R3.13.6 now available

EPICS Base R3.13.6 is now available for download - see the R3.13 page for details.

12-Mar-2002: Tech-talk archives reorganized

A new archiver is now in use for the tech-talk mailing list, and all previously archived messages have been imported into the archive. There is also a new archive search page that has been integrated into the archive. The old epics_application, epics_users and epics_suggestions mailing lists are being disabled as they are never used.

27-Feb-2002: May 2002 Collaboration meeting announced

The Summer 2002 collaboration meeting will be held at BESSY on Wednesday, May 22nd and Thursday, May 23rd with some possibility of spilling into May 24th depending on the agenda. The focus of this meeting will be on beamline controls.

24-Oct-2001: EPICS 3.14.0 Beta 1 released

See the R3.14 page for details.

01-Sep-2001: Base R3.13.5 now available

EPICS Base R3.13.5 is now available for download - see the R3.13 page for details.

23-Jan-2001: May 2001 Collaboration meeting announced

The Summer 2001 EPICS collaboration meeting will be held at the Paul Scherrer Institute during the week of May 7th through May 10th. It is expected that it will offer some training on Monday May 7th and have the regular meeting on the 8th, 9th and 10th.

12-Dec-2000: Base R3.13.4 now available

EPICS Base R3.13.4 is now available for download - see the R3.13 page for details.

17-Oct-2000: EPICS 3.14.0 Alpha 1 released

At long last, a version of EPICS that can run IOCs on Operating Systems other than vxWorks. See the R3.14 page for details.

18-Aug-2000: November 2000 Collaboration meeting announced

The Autumn 2000 EPICS collaboration meeting is being held at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee from November 14-16, with training on November 13th. The agenda will be posted on the meeting web site as it is developed.

As the SNS project is standardizing on Power PC, GNU/Linux, DM2K, Control-Logix PLCs, VXI, and VME, it would be very timely and helpful for those with experience in these areas to present their work here.

11-Jul-2000: Base R3.13.3 now available

EPICS Base R3.13.3 is now available for download - see the R3.13 page for details.

20-Jun-2000: New EPICS Web Site

These redesigned EPICS pages went live at APS on 20th June 2000. Thanks to everyone who checked out the site during development.

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