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                                                        The Florida SunFlash

                National Instruments Ports to Sun

SunFLASH Vol 45 #2					      September 1992 
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  NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS' LABVIEW SOFTWARE PORTED TO SUN SPARC SYSTEMS

 Software Simplifies Development of Laboratory and Testing Applications

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- September 1, 1992 -- Sun Microsystems Computer
Corporation (SMCC) and National Instruments Corporation today announced
that National Instruments has ported its industry-leading LabVIEW
graphical programming software to the Sun SPARC platform. The
availability of LabVIEW software for Sun systems gives users a
powerful, easy-to-use tool for creating programs in automated testing
and laboratory research applications. This is the first UNIX port for
LabVIEW and should help National Instruments better penetrate the
burgeoning workgroup computing market that Sun dominates.

Introduced in 1986, LabVIEW simplifies software development by allowing
users to assemble programs from block diagrams instead of using
conventional text-based programming techniques. Using LabVIEW,
engineers and scientists can concentrate on running test programs
instead of creating them.  The resulting programs, which feature
customized graphical user interface panels, are used to acquire,
analyze and present data from a variety of instruments, including
oscilloscopes, logic analyzers and spectrum analyzers. National
Instruments has been a leading supplier of instrument interface boards
and software drivers for the Sun platform since 1987.

In porting to Sun systems, National Instruments is taking LabVIEW to a
new class of user - those in technical workgroups who demand more
compute power, connectivity and functionality than provided by
Macintosh and other personal computers. For example, SPARCstation
systems can be linked easily with computers from other vendors, a
growing requirement in today's laboratories and factories. In addition,
the workstations' superior compute power permits quick analysis of
large amounts of data. Finally, the multitasking capability of the
workstations enables users to monitor and analyze data from several
instruments and to run other applications simultaneously on a single
screen.

"UNIX workstations are perfectly suited to the needs of engineering and
scientific workgroups," said Jack Barber, LabVIEW marketing manager at
National Instruments.  "We chose Sun over other workstation vendors
because of the robust version of UNIX included in the Solaris operating
environment, the SPARC platform's price/performance and Sun's large
installed base."

"We expect most initial sales of LabVIEW for Sun systems to be in the
test and measurement area," said Mario Dal Canto, director of technical
and industrial market development for SMCC. "Chip and board designers,
for example, will be able to carry out both design and test functions
on one platform, opening the door to true concurrent engineering."

The LabVIEW/SPARC combination also is expected to be popular in
research and product development laboratories, where equipment from
both Sun and National Instruments is prevalent, in manufacturing
testing and in process monitoring and control. In addition, LabVIEW is
expected to find uses in education, robotics, vision inspection and
physiological monitoring.  LabVIEW for Sun systems is available now
from National Instruments for $3,995 for a single-user, floating
license. Multi-user site licensing is also available.

Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation, a subsidiary of Sun
Microsystems, Inc., is the world's leading supplier of client-server
computing solutions, which feature networked workstations and servers
that store, process and distribute information. Used for many demanding
commercial and technical applications, SMCC's products command the
largest share of the computer industry's fastest-growing market
segment: workstations and servers.  Sun Microsystems, Inc., founded in
1982 and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a multi-billion
dollar corporation doing business worldwide.

National Instruments, headquartered in Austin, Texas for 16 years,
manufactures software and hardware products used by engineers and
scientists to build integrated instrument systems using
industry-standard personal computers and workstations. Data can be
acquired with any combination of plug-in data acquisition boards and
GPIB, RS-232 and VXI instruments. The LabVIEW and LabWindows for DOS
application software packages have extensive libraries for developing
intuitive graphical control panels, analyzing acquired data and
presenting it. These products are used worldwide in automated test,
process monitoring and control, factory automation, robotics, image
processing, vision inspection, laboratory automation, physiological
monitoring and personal instrumentation.

Press Contact: Robert Manetta at (415) 336-0979.
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John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.

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