Data acquisition is centuries old!
Data acquisition over the centuries has taken many forms. Today you can still see people collecting data for personal and commercial use with pencil and paper in hand as you will see people travelling routinely to a remote location to retrieve collected data that needs to be processed in some form in order for it to be suitable for its intended use.
Today, data acquisition is very much a part of life. Companies and Governments collect data on almost everything and from almost every source whether the point of collection is remote or stationary or on the move. As information technology has progressed rapidly during the 20th century so has people’s expectation of timeliness. Just think how agitated we can now all become just waiting for a PC to ‘boot up’!