National Instruments - founded in Austin

National Instruments was founded in Austin in 1976 by James Truchard, Robert Swanson, and Bill Nowlin to produce automated test and measurement systems. The company developed the LabVIEW graphical programming environment (first released in 1986), which became widely used in engineering and laboratory automation. National Instruments grew from a small local startup into a major instrumentation and software company while headquartered in Austin.