Writing in a Paris Garret… on Modbus

If you think that I limit my trivial, nonsensical writing to LinkedIn and the RTA Blogs. Oh, no! I have actually now written five books including The Industrial Ethernet Book, OPC UA: The Basics: An OPC UA Overview For Those Who May Not Have a Degree in Embedded Programming, and a couple of others that are under a pseudonym. (I’ll only share those with you if you ask.)

So, in 2015, an anonymous person in my office (Drew) says to me “You should write a book on Modbus,” “Modbus? Why would anyone write a book on Modbus?” I reply. “It’s old technology and everything that could be said about it has been said. It would be like writing another book on dogs. There’s millions of dog books.”

But as I thought about it some more, I realized that maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea. Modbus has found its way into thousands of applications and hundreds of thousands of devices. And even in this age of the Internet, Cloud data storage and the Internet of Things (IoT), it’s going to be relevant for many years to come because of its utter simplicity and ease of use.

So I wrote the book. I describe the birth and history of Modbus technology and the reasons why it has flourished the way it has. Besides the deep dive into Modbus technology, the book describes everything else you need to know about Modbus, including the Modbus Organization, Certification, router technology, interfacing Modbus to IoT protocols like OPC UA and, most of all, why it will live forever.

I actually wrote the book in Paris. Writing a book takes a lot of focused concentration. For me, I need to be in a place where that focused concentration is easier and that’s not my office or even my home office. Way too many distractions there.

I was going to Paris for a trade show last May and I could just stay for another week and write this book. I could write all morning, tour Paris and drink wine all afternoon and evening. I’d come home with a book and a great experience. And that’s how the Modbus book was born.

You’ll have to tell me if you think the wine affected the content of the book. As an author, I, of course, believe that this is one of the greatest works of literature ever. I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes required reading in every high school in America and throughout the world.

The book is, of course, available on Amazon. You can get it here: “Modbus – The Everyman’s Guide to Modbus.”