Stamford, Conn.— The Open Data Acquisition Association (ODAA) previewed its new open data acquisition standard (ODAS) on Nov. 10. ODAS is designed to meet customer requests to mix and match data acquisition system (DAS) hardware and software components without needing custom drivers. Developed over the past six months, ODAS defines a single vendor-independent application program interface (API) using Microsoft COM technology to connect ODAS-compliant hardware and software. Founding vendors from Computer Boards Inc. (Middleboro, Mass.), Data Translation Inc. (Marlboro, Mass.), Hewlett Packard Co. (Palo Alto, Calif.), LABTECH Corp. (Andover, Mass.), Omega Engineering Inc. (Stamford, Conn.), and Strawberry Tree Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) demonstrated interoperability of the analog input portion of the five part standard. Analog output, discrete input, discrete output, and counter/timer sub-system types are scheduled for release in 1999. Committee activities and copies of the standard are available from www.opendaq.org or from the Open Data Acquisition Association, P.O. Box 4462, 1 OMEGA Drive, Stamford, Conn., 06907.