1. Historical background. Definition

A new concept in measurement was born in 1981, when the American company Northwest Instruments launched its first instrumentation modules for direct connection to a personal computer (an Apple II at the time). We call it customized instrumentation.

This name comes from the combination of measuring instrument and personal computer. The resources of the latter are used to carry out the control, management, display and processing tasks normally handled by a microprocessor system inside the instrument. The measuring instrument communicates with the computer via an interface device, which necessarily includes an analog-to-digital converter. The measuring instrument can be reduced to a simple measurement acquisition card, stripped of all intelligence. The computer keyboard is used to control the measuring instrument. It is also on the computer screen that measurement...