The General Purpose Interface Bus (GPIB) is one of the most used and versatile interface standards available today. It is widely used for enabling test instruments to be controlled remotely, although it us also used in a many other applications. Today most bench instruments have either a GPIB option or are fitted with it as standard. Originally named the HP-IB (Hewlett Packard Interface Bus) when it was first introduced it has gained a number of other names over the years, including GP-IB. It has been adopted by a number of major institutions that have given it their numbers. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in the U.S.A. have given it their specification number 488, and as a result it is sometimes referred to as the IEEE 488 bus. Other organizations have also adopted it. The American National Standards Institute as has the European IEC. Despite the proliferation of names and numbers for it, the specifications are all virtually the same and can be used interchangeably.