Sean, I've had a DSO project on the `back burner' for a long time.
I recently had a requirement to analyze IR remote signals so I'm going
to finish the project. Coincidentally, the recent issue of Circuit
Cellar Ink (#89 Dec 97) has two logic analyzer projects. One is a
ram-based 50Mhz design and the other is a FIFO-based 20Mhz design.
Both connect to a bidirectional PC parallel port. My design will be
PIC-based and connect to the serial port.

   - Tom

At 07:47 PM 12/11/97 -0500, you wrote:
>I am looking for very fast ram/fifo buffer ICs for a possible digital
>oscilloscope project. Mainly, I am wondering what the fastest commonly
>available RAM or FIFO is, and how fast it is. By doing a search on the web,
>the fastest I could find was about 3.3 or 4 ns access time. This would
>probably work, but I am just wondering what exists. Does anyone know what
>DSOs do to capture data at >2GS/s ?? I thought possibly they might parallel
>several 5ns FSRAMs and let one recover while writing to the next, etc.
>There still is a limit to how much one could do this, thought, because the
>data has to be placed at the pins of the ram for a certain amt. of time.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Sean