Abstract
Since 2001 August 12, ESO's four 8 m telescopes (Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, and Yepun) have been simultaneously delivering scientific data to the astronomical community at large. Antu was the pioneer, starting its routine science operations life in 1999 March. Currently, four instruments--FORS1, ISAAC, UVES and FORS2--one per telescope, are available to the community under two modes of observation: visitor and service. The proportion of time used in each mode since the opening of Paranal Science Operations is a minimum of 50% in service mode for all instruments. This paper gives a brief description of the VLT and VLTI instrumentation, its beginnings, current achievements, and future plans.
