The capabilities and limitations of microprocessors and their influence on present and future acoustical instruments and analyzers
Randolph Manning · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1980
Microprocessor technology will bring a wealth of instrumentation capability to the acoustical engineer in the future. Some of the past instrumentation has been plagued by heavy, large, power-consuming packages with limited calculating capability. Tube-type systems fell into that category. The transistor aided by minimizing package size and power consumption. Micrologic chips from the space program have further aided by allowing more sophisticated processes to be analyzed. The latest step in this direction has been a large-scale integration of micrologic (LSI) called microprocessors. The microprocessor itself is divided into classifications depending upon speed, ease of use, ease of programmability, ease of development and cost. This diversity includes “BitSlice”, 8-bit MOS, 16 bit MOS, Single Chip, and CMOS microprocessors. When the user understands some of the advantages and disadvantages of various microprocessor techniques and can communicate his requirements to the design engineer, then instruments can be developed which will not be blatant overkill on the one hand or redundantly simplistic devices on the other. Then the user will aid the designer to an optimal design for maximum usefulness at minimum cost, development time, and complexity.