In message <59b85d8f05969c249e60a120e09bab02@mac.com> William "Chops" Westfield wrote: > I wonder if anyone will ever sell an open-source oscilloscope? > Don't like the way the SW works? Fix it yourself, or download > the "unstable with enhanced extra knobs" version from your favorite > repository. Since a lot of the high end scopes these days seem to > be essentially PC clones as the Display/UI, it's not unthinkable. I'd love to do something like that. I can do the software and probably the digital hardware, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about designing high-bandwidth low-noise amplifiers and such for the input circuitry. A DSO isn't *that* complex - when you boil it down to its essentials, you've got: - Front end amplifier (1 per channel) - A/D converter / acquisition circuitry (1 per channel) - Heavily filtered low-noise power supply - High speed RAM (SDRAM these days, though 10nS SRAM would be quite suitable if you could live with the relatively low data density) - Acquisition controller - Trigger circuitry (or just leave the ADC acquiring all the time and implement this in the acq controller) - CPU interface (PCI?) - CPU, display and UI (PC?) It would certainly be fun to build something that gave Tek's low- to mid-range scopes a run for their money :) Anyone want to join me? :P -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem@dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist