Topic summary
Modicon, Inc.
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Programmable logic controller.
Modicon
Bedford Associates started a company, Modicon, Inc., dedicated to developing, manufacturing, selling, and servicing this new product, which they named Modicon (standing for "modular digital controller"). One of the people who worked on that project was Dick Morley, who is considered to be the father of the PLC. The Modicon brand was sold in 1977 to Gould Electronics and later to Schneider Electric, its current owner. About this same time, Modicon created Modbus, a data communications protocol to be used with its PLCs. Modbus has since become a standard open protocol commonly used to connect many industrial electrical devices.