Peripheral interface and process for data transfer, especially for laser scanning microscopes

A peripheral interface and process for data transfer, especially for laser scanning microscopes. The peripheral interface permits a gap-free transfer of data with high transmission speed at low cost and using a non-real-time-enabled operating system of the control computer. In a peripheral interface having a connection for a system bus of a control computer, a peripheral connection for a peripheral device and a control unit serving for one-way transmission of a predetermined amount of data from the control computer to the peripheral device and/or vice versa accesses via the system bus, a work memory region of the control computer serves as buffers preassigned to it, where the control unit prepares for the control computer a progress report of the transfer for retrieval and the control unit of the control computer is informed of the progress of the processing of the buffer independently of the transfer, in which case it allows for the progress of the processing when accessing the buffer. The peripheral device can be part of a laser scanning microscope.