Hi,
my name is Jim - and I collect old computers. No - not old clunky Windows 95 machines, I'm talking about when computers weren't appliances yet, back in the wild and woolly 8 bit days :-)
Back in the early 80s when I was a teenager, I started out with a TRS-80 Model 1, and within a day or so of purchasing it, I had the "Warranty Void if Removed" sticker punched through and it opened up. I loved the simplicity of the design back then - and still do today.
The majority of the components it contained were simple logic gates - along with the CPU and memory chips of course.
Compared to todays desktop machines - computers like this were just asking you to open them up and modify them.
And if a mod went wrong (whoops - put a chip in backwards) it was a pretty simple job to remove the now fried chip and pick up another one from Radio Shack - or Jameco etc.
My first formal introduction to electronics was in a high school electronics class, and a few years later after deciding college wasn't for me - an electronics trade school. ( I had made the mistake of majoring in business in college)
The high school class was my first introduction to Tektronix Oscilloscopes (were there any other brands back then? ;-) ) and again I ran into them again at the trade school. During my time at the trade school, I actually brought in an Expansion Interface for the Model 1 that I was building from a kit, (A Micro-Design MDX-2 I believe) since it wasn't working properly.
The kit included a complete schematic, so armed with my trusty classroom O'scope - I was able to determine I had a bad crystal in a clock generator circuit - which was something I would never have found at home.
It was from that day that I wished for an O'scope - but the price $$$$
The tradeschool launched me into my first real job as field service for Telxon - an obscure small handheld computer maker that retailers would use track barcodes in warehouses etc. Since they were handheld, the users were constantly dropping them - and me and my co-workers were responsible for doing component level repair of them - and getting them back in service.
Again - I was working with Tecktronix scopes and other gear priced out of my league.
Sadly, 20 years or so ago, I moved on from board repair to programming, but I never lost my love of soldering and then applying power and seeing something work (usually). I've gone through many computers in my career - but none of them had the same personality or were as much fun to hack on except for maybe the Raspberry Pi's. (No offense to the Arduino - when I read that Raspberry Pi's could run Linux - I was sold)
Today I'm still trying to keep multiple 8-bit computers alive - and still buy an occasional upgrade for them - upgrades I'd never have dreamed of back in the 80s - like SD Card emulated floppy drives - and an expansion unit for my Model 1 that does everything the original kit I built did - but in about 1/8th the space. The one item I never bought was an O'scope, and on a whim last week, I was doing a google search on hobbyist scopes - and that lead me to this forum. I'm currently eyeing a Rigol DS1054Z, which I never heard of till reading about it here. A couple years ago, I read about the USB Bitscope, but I wanted something more self-contained.
After reading some recommendations for the Rigol on this forum, I did a youtube search looking for some reviews - and found some entertaining (and informative) ones by an Aussie (?) co-incidentally with the Youtube account "EEVblog" ;-)
I'm not there where I'm going to buy just yet - but I'm certainly thinking about the Rigol.
In the meantime, I need to watch this video I stumbled onto:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/oscilloscope-training-class-(long)/It's been ages since I've used a scope, so I can use a refresher.
Since this was supposed to be a short intro, I tried to keep it brief.
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