I have a Tek 465 that I got a few years back on Ebay (it is apparently a US
Air Force surplus).  It does the job for around $200 and still works mostly
fine (probably needs some contact cleaner more than anything).  On the other
end, I used a couple of brand new top of the line (or close) Teks with a
whole line of different current and differential voltage probes for a
semester a couple of years ago at school working on a switching bass amp for
senior design and you can consider me permanently spoiled.  I don't think
we'd have gotten it working with a 465.  But then again I'd have to sell my
car just to make a down payment on the thing.  I gotta find a job with a
company that's got the good stuff.

As far as I got with my 465 getting the USART on a PIC talking to my PC was
seeing if there was a signal present, min/max levels, etc.  Certainly I
couldn't have decoded the signal to ascii or anything (unless it was
periodic, like sending "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa", then
maybe).  But ultimately it was good enough to get everything working using
the PC terminal as a debugging tool.

Bottom line:  You'll probably get by for quite awhile with an analog but
you'll probably also find yourself frequently wishing you had more.  Guess
that's life on a budget, eh?

Nick

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