89-21Computers
proprietary instrumentation soware design packages are readily available from instrument manu-
facturers
. De
vice
dr
ivers
in
tegrate
th
e
co
ntrolling
in
terface
(e.g., IE
EE-488,
RS
-232,
or in
ternal
ca
rd)
in
to
th
e
op
erating
sy
stem
of th
e
co
mputer
. Wr
iting
a de
vice driver
re
quires
a de
tailed
kn
owledge
of th
e
de
vice
ha
rdware
an
d
of th
e
co
mputer
op
erating
sy
stem
. i
s
is a di
cult
ta
sk
an
d
ne
w
in
terfaces
sh
ould
be p
urchased
w
ith
a d
evice
d
river
a
ppropriate
f
or
t
he
o
perating
s
ystem
w
herever
p
ossible
.
A nu
mber
of de
velopment
en
vironments
wh
ich
ar
e
ba
sed
on th
e
vi
rtual
in
strument
co
ncept
ar
e
no
w
av
ailable
. e
se
fr
ee
th
e
us
er
fr
om
th
e
pr
oblems
of wr
iting
co
nventional
so
ware
to co
ntrol
in
struments
and handle the data produced. Instruments ...