The Physics Department at St. Olaf College is in the process of modernizing its introductory and advanced laboratories. The instrumentation to be acquired will greatly increase access to computers for data acquisition, analysis and display. A variety of instruments, with stand-alone capability as well as computer access, will give access to state-of-the-art electronic devices. These include: a digital multimeter, a digital storage scope, a versatile function generator, and a power supply; all with GPIB capability. The computing equipment will include terminals (with and without graphics capability) to allow greater access to existing multi-user computers, and a PC/AT compatable with high resolution color graphics, plotter, interfacing cards, and software for data acquisition and analysis. The large introductory laboratory sections will benefit from the addition of four microcomputers, with bit-mapped graphics capability, to give access to a routine already developed for data analysis. Two printers will supply hard-copy of the results. A number of electronics and advanced laboratory experiments will take advantage of the greater precision or speed of access to examine topics of fundamental interest, but not generally accessible with conventional instrumentation.
