On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 10:06:38 -0400, you wrote:

>I have been using scopes for longer than I care to admit.  We purchased a
>TDA-420A a couple of years ago.  Great scope but no-one here (8 technical
>people, most who believe in using scopes and a few who don't) will use it.
>It is (imho) not very user friendly.  I have used it to sort out some hairy
>problems, but have to spend an hour or so re-learning how to use it.  Most
>of the time, I'll just grab an old analog scope for quick measurements.  If
>you are using it every day, its great.  If you just have to grab it once in
>a while to fix a problem, look elsewhere.

>>
>> >After comparing etc., I decided that I can afford one of these:
>> >
>> >1. TDS 220 (nice, small, but no trigger delay, strange low price)
>> >2. TDS 340 or TDS 360 (my current favorite)
>> >3. HP 54600B (cheap)
>> >4. HP 54602B (four channels)
>> >5. HP 54645A (something called MegaZoom etc. recommended to me by HP
>> >representative, after I explained him that I really don't want Infinium)
>> >
>> >Does anybody have a personal experience with some of these scopes ? Any
>> >other ideas, hints etc. ?
>>
If you can afford the HP 54645A go for it. The megazoom is extremely
useful when dealing with microcontroller type stuff, like serial
streams, I2C busses etc. Basically it means the scope captures a
million data points (subject to sample rate limitations), so you can
zoom in & out to see the overall structure etc. then zoom in to
specific edges, either in realtime or on single shot events.
The user interface is very fast & responsive - as good as an analogue
scope. also has good glitch trigger modes and an infinite persistance
mode useful for catching occasional glitches and problems. 
If you can stretch a bit more, go for the 54645D, which gives you 16
digital channels as well, but still behaves more like a scope than a
logic analyser.
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