Supersmart equipment: Software for computer-based instruments brings users a plethora of benefits

Very large-scale integrated circuits available for small instruments have been revolutionizing the way engineers take measurements. The hand-held calculator has relieved them of multiplication and logarithm tasks. The logic analyzer has enabled them to look at the output pins on a chip as computer words rather than as high and low voltages. And instruments introduced last year have been doing more interpreting of data to produce meaningful information.