The IEC bus - How it works. I

In many cases an electronic instrument is combined with other instruments. Instrumental operation within the resulting instrument system has more or less automatic characteristics. The IEC bus provides a standard instrument interface for the operation of the instrument system. Questions related to the suitable combination of instruments are considered, taking into account the talker and the listener device, an external bus system, a bus system with programmable controller, and details concerning the interface. Elements and principles of operation of a bus system are discussed. Attention is given to the reasons for using only one talker, bus system limitations, the wired-AND, the wired-OR, and the hand-shake process.