INSTRUMENTATION BUSES FOR HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Over the past three decades high energy physics experiments have become progressively larger and more complex. Advances in electronic component technology played a massive role in this process, but the landmark development which enabled the ever growing quantities of detector data to be extracted was that of the instrumentation bus. This paper emphasises the fact that, while bus specifications continually improve, the essential qualities of the original concept have proved invaluable allowing inestimable economies of scale as well as the melding of devices from different institutional and commercial cultures into integrated structures.