A short review of current laboratory microcomputer systems and practice.

In the last few years quite powerful complete computer systems have become available that fill many laboratory needs at low cost (US $3000-10,000). This development is based on the use of microcomputers, which now have capabilities that were previously associated with minicomputers. Due to the rapidly expanding use of microcomputers, a very large software base has been developed. As a result it is now feasible to use a microcomputer in the laboratory for signal averaging, controlling experiments, data analysis and reduction, printing and storage of results, plotting of graphs, curve fitting, statistics and word-processing. These applications of a microcomputer can make some other laboratory equipment unnecessary, thus providing substantial savings on items such as analog tape recorders, strip chart recorders, and stimulus generators.