National Instruments is 30, Virtual Instrumentation is 20!

“Founded in Austin, Texas, in 1976 by Jeff Kodosky, Bill Nowlin and James Truchard, National Instruments pioneered the concept of virtual instrumentation – combining open, flexible software and modular hardware with commercial off-the-shelf technologies – to offer engineers and scientists a user-defined approach to creating more efficient and customizable solutions. A key component to the concept of virtual instrumentation is LabVIEW software which, during the past 20 years, has evolved from a desktop instrument control and data acquisition tool into an integrated design, control and test platform for desktop, industrial, embedded and handheld applications. Learn more about NI history, culture, and vision by visiting www.ni.com/anniversary.”
It is kind of cool to remember back to when the only place you could get a graphical HMI was on a Macintosh computer, loaded with LabView. It was not only cool, it was downright magical to be able to make instrument faces on a computer screen that actually worked like panel displays and controllers and indicatiors of all kinds.
Walt