One of the areas in industry that is currently undergoing fastest change, potentially affecting everything from small scale process control, throgh the range of SCADA users, to piece part production, is computer graphics at (and beyond) the man-process interface. It is the graphics control systems that are now set to make one of the greatest impacts. This article will look at systems based on the IBM PC and its compatibles, aimed at providing: first, run time monitoring of intelligent instrumentation and programmable controllers; second, direct digital control via distributed I/O; and third, sophisticated off-line plant analyses.