Temperature Measurement and Control
In the early transition of analog to digital, before uP became acceptable, Digital systems without uP were made, it even had printers, RAM and displays. The uP systems were coming in, uC had not yet come and uP systems had to still win the confidence of the Prudent Industrial Design Engineer.
The drawbacks of uP based systems used in Computers, in those days were.
- Power Consumption was very high, needed SMPS.
- Many chips, a CPU had a Retinue of many chips.
- Large Board, Double or Multi Sided due to Bus.
- Fussy, Hangs on minor Power Glitches or Resets.
- Needs Firmware Development and Tight Testing.
- Investment in all these areas, Tools and Manpower.

The coming of Low power CMOS uC changed everything and embedded systems became smaller and robust. These were packable in DIN standard and DIN Rail Mounting enclosures.
Coming back to inputting digital data. CMOS uC and Ni-Cd Battery backed up RAM with keyboards made thumb-wheels and other methods less attractive for digital data inputs. Then the Li-Ion Battery, Flash Memory in Combination with Application Specific uC and SOC have made inputting, retaining digital data very easy and affordable.