Scope buying advice

[Phillip L. Harbison]

Quinton asked for scope recommendations.  I've always had great
luck with Tektronix.  I cut my teeth on a Tek 765.  Nobody else
can beat their triggering and I really love the delayed sweep
feature.  I've used scopes by Kikusui and Hitachi.  They were
OK but I only used them if the Tek scopes were all busy, i.e.
as a last resort.  I've never cared for HP scopes, although
their other test equipment is top notch.  I love the HP 1630,
1631, and 1650 lines of logic analyzers.

I recently purchased a 2247A on the eBay auction site.  It is a
4-channel scope and I believe the bandwidth is 200MHz (not sure,
might be 400).  I paid $810 without probes.  The seller was
Alex Torek (sales at astglobal.com).  I was very happy with the
transaction.  They shipped promptly and the unit was exactly as
advertised and in excellent condition.  They take credit cards.
Their phone number is 1-888-216-7159.

David Halliday wrote:
> Also, this guy: http://www.bitscope.com/ has me intrigued...
> It is a mixed signal ( 4x analog up to 100MHz, 8x digital logic level )
> input with output going right to the screen of your PC.

I just visited their web site and I'm impressed.  I was planning
to build a DSO.  At first I thought I might just build a fast ADC
board and input parallel data to my HP1650 logic analyzer.  Then
I got to thinking it would be nice to have a separate tool but
maybe use a Mac for display.  I was planning to build something
pretty much like the BitScope minus the logic analyzer, but with
USB for connecting to the host.  I would prefer USB but since the
BitScope is already built and only $390, why bother.  Instead, I
will direct my effort toward a Motif GUI for my UNIX boxes and
possibly a Mac GUI.  I have beaucoup Motif experience but have
never programmed a Mac running MacOS.  I guess there's a first
time for everything. :-)  Thanks for the link, David!


--
*name: Phil Harbison
*path: alvitar at xavax.com
*URL: http://www.xavax.com/alvitar