At the beginning, Elphy is a software designed to meet the needs of researchers of the UNIC laboratory ( Unité de Neurosciences Integratives et Computationnelles - CNRS ).    We can consider that it is the Windows successor of Acquis1, an old MS-DOS software marketed by companies DIPSI and BIOLOGIC, although its field of application is far more extensive and that its programming language differs significantly from that of Acquis1 by use of object programming.    In the past, Elphy was also called DAC1 or DAC2.  Elphy was originally designed to analyze the files created by Acquis1, or by Axon softwares. Later, we introduced a Data Acquisition module, then a Visual Stimulation module.    Today, Elphy is mainly used in the field of Electrophysiology but it is built like a general purpose DAQ software and could be used in others domains.    Elphy can control an experiment through multifunction interfaces provided by National Instrument, MCC , Instrutech , AXON, UEI or Blackrock-microsystems.  Data acquired on this devices can be analyzed and presented in real-time on a PC, using a built-in programming language.  This language include about 160 dedicated objects and 2500 functions ( in june 2010 )