to control functions in automobiles, appliances, production machines, farm machines, and almost all devices where intelligent decisions are profitable. Both engineering schools and individual practicing engineers have re­ sponded in the past several years to the dramatic growth in microcomputer control applications in thermal and mechanical systems. Universities have established courses in computer control in such departments of engineering as mechanical, civil, agricultural, chemical and others. Instructors and students in these courses see a clear role in the field that complements that of the com­ puter specialist who usually has an electrical engineering or computer science background. The nonEE or nonCS person should first and foremost be com­ petent in the mechanical or thermal system being controlled. The objectives of extending familiarity into the computer controller are (1) to learn the char­ acteristics, limitations, and capabilit.