Technology 1993 - Test and measurement

Significant developments during 1992 are reviewed. Software-controlled, card-modular test and measuring instruments really took hold and seem likely to remain important for the rest of the 1990s. The number and variety of available instrument cards that fit into the VXIbus, plus the software to control them, reached a level of development during 1992 that enables test-system designers to assemble and program test setups for almost any imaginable application. The personal computer, now powerful enough, familiar, available, low in cost, and industrially hardened, has become the obvious platform for the new instrumentation. VXIbus began to attract non-US firms. Another package in the LabVIEW software family, which supports PC-controlled testing, became available. This one is LabVIEW for Windows, Version 2.5 for IBM-PC and compatibles outfitted with Microsoft's Windows.<<ETX>>