Tom Rogers wrote:
> Come to think of it, this thread might have been the sleeper of the year in
> terms of actually imparting some of what it takes to the less experienced...
>

At least one contributor stated his intention of building a digital
scope or logic analyser that plugged into a PC printer port. Before
lifting a soldering iron, it is worth downloading the Demo software for
such scopes made available on the Net. Some of it is rather awful. If PC
add-on scopes aren't as popular as they surely should be, it might be
due to the low quality of the current products. Some claim to do so many
things, most of which you've managed without for years. Many are just
hard to understand and operate. And if the real software bombs as often
as the Demos, you wouldn't want to risk your money on it.

Look at:  ...www.pico.co.uk ....www.tiepie.nl ....linkinstruments.com
and others.

One of them is very impressive, if a bit old-fashioned. The scope
available from:
http://www.maplin.co.uk
looks like a scope, and does what you expect it to do, with familiar
controls. And the price is not unreasonable.

Another is very attractive but over-priced. It's at:
http://gs2020.open.ac.uk/products.htm

The Open University in the UK devises home study courses for all kinds
of things, from the Arts and Humanities to Technology. For the latter,
they make equipment available to students, on loan or at low prices.

The GS2020 scope is a digital sampling scope, 20 MHz, dual-channel. A
modest spec. The scope also contains 3 programmable power supplies for
powering experimental hardware, and a digitally controlled function
generator that produces sine/triangle/square waves up to several MHz.
All this is controlled from the scope front panel. The Windows display
software has a mature and elegant appearance.

Exactly what the student or hobbyist needs, in fact. But it costs over
UKP 600. The same basic scope spec is available elsewhere for half this.
I can't see how the extra hardware can cost this much. I wouldn't pay
this much for 20 MHz sampling rate.

John Blackburn,
South London UK.