Technology forecasting IV: Instrumentation: In the offing are low-cost sensors; voltage-tuned, wide-range signal sources; signal-sequence generators; CCD displays; and much more

Complex measuring systems with sensors providing inputs much like nerves in the human nervous system, instrument “service bureaus” that receive transducer inputs from customers and return measurement data to them, and instruments that generate signals for an entire test sequence with a single key stroke — these are but a few of the exciting new instrumentation developments in the offing. The technological “breakthroughs” in the instrumentation art will occur when ways are found to meet present and future measurement needs and as technological breakthroughs in other areas motivate the conception of new kinds of instruments.