A new interface for the BBC, allowing it to control scientific and technical equipment, was released last week. The Acorn IEE interface will let you connect the BBC to up to 14 IEEE488-compatible devices.

With a price tag of £325 the interface makes a low cost control system possible. Until now these systems have usually cost several thousand pounds, but the cost of a BBC, disk drive, monitor and IEEE interface adds up to under £1,100.

The interface works by establishing the BBC as the controller of an IEEE local area network, and allows the micro to send information to devices as well as receiving data. Typical peripherals will be oscilloscopes, voltmeters, logic analysers and the like.