Getting Started In PC-Based Data Acquisition

I hate to use clichés, but suppliers of data acquisition system (DAS) products need a reality check. Too commonly educated in electrical or software engineering, we pack our sales material with technical jargon only persons with a similar background can understand. This is great for impressing the competition, but we leave many potential customers drifting in our wake. Too often, the customer for DAS products is a mechanical or chemical engineer, a seismologist, a medical researcher, or another who works in one of hundreds of other disciplines not even remotely related to computers and electronics. Turnabout is fair play, so I propose some rhetorical questions for the EEs in the audience: When was the last time you had to spec a pinion gear for your car; or concern yourselves with the intricate details of even one of the many forms of electrophysiology?