Industrial Communication Systems

27-1

27.1 Introduction

It is commonly accepted that the multimedia applications that appeared in the mid-1990s are the third

generation

of

computer

applications

[P98].

e

rst

generation

was

characterized

by

its

ability

to

man-

age

data,

while

the

second

generation

was

considered

to

be

principally

for

communication.

is

has

had

an

inuence

on

computer

instruction

set

architecture

(ISA)

in

current

processors

with

the

introduction

of

multimedia

extensions

(e.g.,

MMX

and

SSE

in

Intel)

or

in

the

development

and

denition

of

LAN

and

WAN

networks

that

were

able

to

provide

quality

of

service

(QoS)

to

this

trac

(such

as

IEEE

802.11e).

e

area

of

indus ...