Data acquisition: one step at a time

Abstract

The production of data acquisition software was once the province of hardened programmers, but the advent of spreadsheets and databases, particularly for the ubiquitous PC, has led to a revolution in data processing. Now there is an array of software that allows users to acquire, process and output data without having to delve into the programming nuts and bolts. Just as spreadsheets and databases are not data processing solutions in themselves, so the packages discussed here are simply aids to generating data acquisition and control applications.