Better late than never? 53-year-old HP bus standard finally gets a Linux driver, boasting 8MB/s bandwidth

• HP’s GPIB standard receives Linux support 53 years after its original release
• Legacy lab instruments can now integrate seamlessly with modern Linux distros
• The interface maintains the original 8MB/s bandwidth across multiple connected devices

A bus standard introduced by HP in 1972 has finally gained stable Linux driver support, more than fifty years after its initial release.

HP created the interface to link laboratory instruments with computers, and it later became known as IEEE 488 after standardization in 1975.

The design allowed multiple devices to share a single bus of up to twenty meters while offering data transfer speeds of up to 8MB/s, which was impressive for its time.