The continued decline in the cost of computer hardware has led to new applications of computer technology in data acquisition systems. This paper is concerned with the proper selection of small scale computers for these applications. The first section of the paper compares microcomputers with two likely alternatives in data acquisition systems—minicomputers on the high end of the scale and hard-wired logic on the low end. In the second section the criteria for selecting microcomputers are discussed. Two case studies illustrating the application of these criteria are analyzed in the concluding section.