The evolution of microcomputer-based medical instrumentation

The evolution of the microprocessor from its early beginnings in 1971 as a primitive central processing unit to the powerful component of today has made a significant impact on the design of biomedical instrumentation. More computing power and memory are being squeezed into fewer integrated circuits to provide increasingly more powerful instruments. The PC itself has become a powerful tool in biomedical computing applications. In the future, it will be possible to develop new medical instruments to address problems that were previously not solvable. This possibility exists because microprocessor-based systems continuously increase in computing power and memory and concurrently decrease in size, cost, and power consumption.<
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