With a $10,000 loan from Interfirst Bank, the group bought a PDP-11/04 minicomputer and, for their first project, designed and built a GPIB interface for it. Finally, they settled on the current name of National Instruments. They attempted to incorporate under several names, including Longhorn Instruments and Texas Digital, but all were rejected. In 1976, working in the garage at Truchard's home, the three founded a new company. Frustrated with the inefficient data collection methods they were using, the three decided to create a product that would enable their task to be done more easily. Navy, the men were using early computer technology to collect and analyze data.
As part of a project conducting research for the U.S. In the early 1970s, James Truchard, Jeff Kodosky, and Bill Nowlin, were working at the University of Texas at Austin Applied Research Laboratories.
