Legacy VB6 HMI app using PTalk needs to communicate with the Power PMAC

I have a customer that has a HMI application that runs on a NT PC, written in VB6 that uses Delta Tau’s PTalk to communicate with an older Turbo PMAC. Due new system requirements the Turbo PMAC is being upgraded to a Power PMAC. While this was the right thing to do for the new servo technology, it created an issue with communication between the legacy VB6 app and the Delta Tau hardware. My understanding is that PTalk is not supported with the Power PMAC. Is this true? I've explored a number of other options, but none have been fruitful. I’m sure that I'm not the first to come across the issue of a legacy app needing to talk to the Power PMAC hardware.

 

Do you have any suggestions?

Is there an app that I could use to translate PTalk to something that the new Power PMAC can understand? Wishful thinking, I know...

Do you know of any example projects or code that I can reference/Leverage for writing my own translator app?

 

My team as talked about modifying the legacy VB6 app, replacing communication via PTalk with a Telnet session. However, currently we’re not able to build the legacy VB6 project. We are still working on piecing together a working build ENV., but would like to explore other options in the event that this is a dead end.

 

Thanks for your support,

Just as your customer is making an investment in modernizing their hardware, so too should they modernize their software. Up until Visual Studio 2008, a Visual Studio 6 project conversion utility was included. This converter did a pretty good job. The conversion report includes a list of issues you may want to fix, a list of issues you should fix, and a list of those you must fix. The easiest path would probably be to acquire a copy of VS2008 and convert the VB6 project to VB .Net. Once this is done, you can build it in the Visual Studio version of your choice.