A simple, yet effective real-time data acquisition system utilizing inexpensive commercially available hardware was developed and tested for use with the University of Cincinnati Boiling Water Reactor Simulator. This system provides real-time data acquisition and color display of 15 reactor parameters with multilevel alarm capability. The system can easily be expanded to handle a greater number of data channels and is especially useful for those who perform realtime simulation or laboratory experimentation and wish to display data in strip chart or bar graph form in full color.