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Trends in PC-Based Test and Measurement
By James Borton
Product Marketing Manager
Keithley Instruments, Inc.
In today's test and measurement environment, developments in PC-based systems are rising to
meet user expectations for greater capabilities. Continuous improvements in personal computers
and operating systems provide the power for a much wider range of measurement and control
applications. Instrumentation companies are also working hard to introduce high performance,
easy-to-use products that capitalize on the power and flexibility of the PC. Both hardware and
software capabilities are rapidly increasing, while the cost and size of products is falling. Each
day, users are finding that PC-based test and measurement allows higher throughput and is more
cost-effective than other alternatives.
While this is going on, product life cycles for PC-based test system products are getting shorter.
There is a variety of new products and methodologies being offered. To help the reader keep up
with these developments, six important trends in PC-based test and measurement are discussed
below.
1. Instrument Form Factors
A key movement is towards smaller, smarter, and less expensive PC boards. Capabilities are
increasing as size decreases. Correspondingly, there is renewed interest in PCMCIA cards for
PC-based test. The portability features of notebook PCs allow users to bring this test technology
to any field location.
The new 32-bit CardBus for notebook PCs is gaining attention because it allows data
transmission over the PCMCIA bus at PCI rates (132 Mbyte/s throughput). The evolution from the
PCMCIA bus to CardBus seems likely to follow a path similar to that of the migration from the ISA
to PCI bus.
Keithley's KPCI-PIO24 and -PIO96 boards provide 24 and 96 bi-directional TTL-level
parallel digital I/O lines for control and monitoring under Windows