A subjective description is given of how the development of surface plasmon resonance for immunosensing began. The main differences between the initial experiments and a commercially available instrumentation are pointed out. For the practical use of surface oriented methods for biosensing it is noted that the arrangements around the optical system itself, such as the sensing chip or sample cell, are most important. It is concluded that the instrumentation developed can be used not only for immunosensing but also for "real time biospecific interaction analysis" in general. It is pointed out that the use of surface plasmon resonance for detection is only one possibility and that many new (optical) methods for real time biospecific interaction analysis have been and will be developed.