Telescope Control System Upgrade

Around 2002, it was decided at Texas A{\&}M University Kingsville to enhance the control system for the 16'' Newtonian / Cassegrain telescope located atop Hill Hall, the physics building on campus. A modern, state of the art control system was selected and purchased but even after two years, no progress had been made on the implementation and the telescope remained nonfunctioning and completely unusable. The author of this paper was asked to come in as an alumni volunteer and complete the implementation at minimal additional expense and return the telescope to operational condition. Various problems in design had to be identified and overcome and volunteers with other skill sets had to be attracted to the project in order to succeed. Over a period of several months, the new telescope control system hardware was installed on the telescope and the computer based control system was brought up to operational status.