Engineers still prefer front-panel controls
T&MW Staff -- Test & Measurement World, 7/1/2004
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There are several reasons why engineers prefer front panels. First of all, a front panel provides the shortest path to a measurement. You don’t need a separate computer so you don’t have to worry about drivers or communications links to collect data. The study also found that engineers are reluctant to connect test equipment to corporate networks because they fear that IT people will have access to test data and may inadvertently alter it. In other cases, IT departments discourage the use of test equipment on “their” networks, mostly because they consider test equipment a risk to the network.
Engineers are showing interest in using Ethernet to control instruments not so much over a network, but as a direct computer-to-instrument link. They’re also showing interest in the ubiquitous USB port. You can expect these buses to appear in more and more test equipment. Engineers are turning to these buses in place of IEEE 488, especially when they need to quickly connect their instruments to computers for taking measurements. In many cases, these engineers still use an instrument’s front panel to set up the instrument and get the data, and then use the computer bus to transfer the data to a networked computer. T&MW
