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Anniversary – 30 years of BACnet Jubiläum – 30 Jahre BACnet

via IBM PROFS (the internal mail system) that he intended to found a new
company with Mike Markkula of Apple under the name Echelon in Palo
Alto and that we should stay in touch. 1998 the company was founded.
In 1991 (by then I had moved to Siemens), he asked me to inquire at HL
(semiconductors – today Infineon) whether there was interest in producing
the Neuron chip with LonTalk. This would have meant production in the
“Triad” (Asia with Toshiba, America with Motorola, Europe). Siemens’
response was: “No – this would be counterproductive in view of the EIB
development.”

Establishment of the FACN protocol

Back in Germany, I presented FACN to JCI, Honeywell and Landis & Gyr.
All agreed to develop FACN for their systems. The concept included a PC
above the DDCs as a gateway, called a “Remote Intelligent Subsystem”
(RIS). JCI implemented the solution quickly. For Honeywell, I made my
personal IBM annual PC available to the Stuttgart Honeywell branch for
testing. For Landis & Gyr, Prof. Dr. Bernd Güsmann developed the FACN
protocol on the “Realtime Interface Coprocessor” (RIC) card for the IBM
XT, connected to the L&G SDLC ring.
Fig. 5: IBM FACN poster at ISH 1985
At ISH 1985, FACN was presented publicly for the first time via posters at Abb. 5: IBM FACN Poster zur ISH 1985
JCI, Honeywell, L&G and LTG. There, Dr. Jürgen Masuch († January 8, 2023)
convinced me to participate in standardization for control technology. This
resulted in DIN 32734 “Digital Automation for Technical Building Services”,
which in 2006 was incorporated into EN ISO 16484-1 and -2.

See Fig. 5.

The German path with FND

In 1985, together with Ulrich Drechsler, I presented FACN at the VDI in
Stuttgart, and Drechsler also presented PC-LEICOM. Heribert Baumann
(† May 16, 2021) from the Chief Finance Directorate Stuttgart attended
and subsequently invited me to an “audience” in his office. This was
the starting point for developing the “Swabian Bus”, officially called the
“Vendor-Neutral Data Transmission System” (FND 87), intended to be
completed in 1987.

At the end of 1987, the AMEV (Working group for mechanical and electrical
engineering of state and municipal administrations) draft of FND was
published and the pilot project at Ulm University with JCI and L&G was
launched. Many experts from the BAC industry worked first within AMEV
and then on the standard DIN V 32735-2:1991-01, which was adopted
by CEN as DIN V ENV 1805-2:1995-09, as a pre-standard, since similar
projects already existed at CEN.

For the management level, BACnet became DIN V ENV 1805-1:1998-03.
When it became apparent that BACnet was gaining market acceptance,
I applied within the DIN NHRS (Standards Committee for Heating and
Ventilation) advisory board for withdrawal of the FND pre-standard. This
triggered protest and resentment among many involved in FND. The pre-
standards were replaced by DIN EN ISO 16484-5:2004-08 (BACnet).
Many years later, in 2013, at a celebratory colloquium for Prof. Heinz
Bach (University of Stuttgart), Heribert Baumann told me that, in principle, Fig. 6: Mike Newman and Hans Kranz at the VDI / Mike Newman and Barbara Kranz at
BACnet was exactly what he had wanted back then. However, this was not Lake Mummelsee (Seebach, Black Forest) / Mike Newman and Hans Kranz at the Ezra
feasible at that time, both technically and for cost reasons. Cornell Memorial in Ithaca, NY
Abb. 6: Mike Newman und Hans Kranz beim VDI / Mike Newman und Barbara Kranz am
Mümmelsee (Seebach, Schwarzwald) / Mike Newman und Hans Kranz am Ezra Cornell-
Denkmal in Ithaca, NY

8 BACnet Europe Journal 44 03/26