The fact that its DS1000 BASIC-programmable industrial controller is now IP68-compliant was proudly announced by Tibbo Technology.

"Industrial-strength dust- and water-proof devices are nothing new. Most of the time, however, such devices are not aesthetically pleasing. Tibbo's achievement is that we have managed to combine industrial strength, elegant appearance, and the flexibility of a truly programmable system in a single easy-to-use package", has commented, in Taipei, on this new development, Managing Director and one of the founders of Tibbo Technology, Mr. Dmitry Slepov.

A widely used standard of ruggedness is IP ("International Protection Rating"). The higher the IP number is, the more resilient is the rated device. Being considered sufficient for most industrial applications, the rating of IP68 is very high.

Once a special secondary waterproof cover is installed, the DS1000 becomes dust- and waterproof. The cover attaches to the top of the DS1000 and accommodates up to six signal cables that can securely "exit" through it.

Due later this year, other devices in the DS10xx family will also be IP68-compliant.

By enormous complexity of programming languages, operating systems, and design tools, Tibbo Technology Inc., located in Taipei, Taiwan, brings simplicity to the embedded world defined. Tibbo,. established in 1999, originally staked out a niche in the highly competitive Device Server arena. Tibbo has realized early on that its customers were going to need much more than just a fixed-function serial-to-Ethernet converter. Moreover, market pressure to add network functionality to an increasing number of devices and systems was going to bring to the "networking table" a large number of developers and integrators with no prior experience in embedded networking and professional programming languages, such as C++.