A general-purpose microprocessor system for medical instrumentation and electrical stimulation.
The article describes the design of a user-defined multipurpose system based on the Zilog Z-80, 8-bit microprocessor. The basic concept comprises a mainframe with a keyboard/display interface for communication between user and system. Different types of instrumentation equipment can be obtained using the same mainframe; only the contents of the program memory have to be changed. Up to seven programmable input/output boards can be installed. Some special-purpose boards are constructed to improve the versatility of the system. The major advantage of the presented system is that it can be applied at any time in the laboratory in an experiment or in the hospital for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, without the engagement of existing computer memory.