From as far back as the time of ancient Greeks and Mayans, operators have looked at scientific instruments and written down observations. It was not until the arrival of the computer that data could be acquired and stored automatically. The introduction of the digital computer provided the platform to not only acquire and store data but also analyse and report it.rnThis is achieved using a three-part data acquisition (DAQ) system that consists of an input/output sub-system, a PC and the controlling software. Today a wide variety of firms make data acquisition and control interfaces for the PC. Most systems have an internal plug-in board configuration or an external box. The majority of plug-in board business is based on the PCI bus (or variants such as cPCI and PXI) and is starting tornfollow the lead of the consumer PC vendors into PCI Express. The external box vendors now have Ethernet and USB standards to work with as well as some less used, but viable, interfaces such as Firewire, CAN, and perhaps the oldest standard in computing, RS-232. Combined with advanced software, these DAQ input/output systems will turn a personal computer into a useful measurement tool. Software such as MATLAB and Lab VIEW are designed to make the most of extremely powerful applications and are easy to use.
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