Sun sets on IEEE 488, LAN and PC standards vie for its role

摘要

Like old soldiers, instrument-interfacing and -communication standards never die; they just fade away. The reason is that instruments themselves, except for the low-cost, handheld variety, which many managers and engineers regard as expendable, often last for many years. This longevity stems only partly from the care that instrument makers exercise in designing and manufacturing their products. Other reasons include the considerable cost of most lab instruments and the relatively benign environments in which most such units operate. Instruments' longevity-even in manufacturing-test functions-has an important side effect: Standards that govern instrument communication and interfacing are slow to change. Moreover, these standards usually evolve in ways that allow substituting new instruments for older models in new instances of legacy applications, enabling engineers to avoid massive rewrites of costly, custom, application-specific software that controls many T&.M applications and that processes and presents the instrument-acquired data.