The IEEE-488 bus was developed to connect and control programmable instruments and to provide a standard interface for communication between instruments from different sources. Hewlett-Packard originally developed the interfacing technique and called it HP-IB. The interface quickly gained popularity in the computer industry. Because the interface was so versatile, the IEEE committee renamed it GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus). All references to this interface bus in this section will use the name IEEE-488.
