True analog scopes

[james_s]

I guess you'd have real trouble with the likes of a Pico scope.

Trouble? No, I'm fully capable of operating one, or at least a similar instrument, I just don't like it. I picked up a BitScope about 15 years ago, it was the only DSO I had at the time and it worked ok but it was never really a great experience. I think I gave it to a friend a few years ago, I hadn't used it even once since getting my TDS scope. If it works for you then great, but I've come to the conclusion through experience that I don't like PC based test equipment.

[Fungus]

Well, not the same thing but quite. Actually that reminds me of something that happened this morning a maserati decided that the best moment to do a full system update was when idling at a semaphore  the guy freaked out when the idle got up, and the AC started going full blast, then the message appeared on the various screens. The car is updating its software, please do not turn off the car 

Was it a "friend-of-a-friend" that it happened to?

I find it hard to believe a car would do any updating while the engine was running.

[vk6zgo]

I guess you'd have real trouble with the likes of a Pico scope.

Trouble? No, I'm fully capable of operating one, or at least a similar instrument, I just don't like it. I picked up a BitScope about 15 years ago, it was the only DSO I had at the time and it worked ok but it was never really a great experience. I think I gave it to a friend a few years ago, I hadn't used it even once since getting my TDS scope. If it works for you then great, but I've come to the conclusion through experience that I don't like PC based test equipment.

Those old Bitscopes were pretty dire.
I remember seeing a wildly enthusiastic magazine article on them years ago.

Amongst the screenshots shown was one of a line of PAL analog video.
The rendition of the colour burst was cringeworthy, to say the least.
They didn't attempt a screenshot at field rate!

[David Hess]

Along with glossy screens which pick up every fingerprint and massive problems with glare from the windows and office lights.

Mine is matte, doesn't show anything. 

My new old laptop has a matte screen and is pretty good.  The two desktop monitors I bought last year have matte screens.

Never thought I'd be into them much for test equipment until trying a few and you should be aware a touch based UI is required for a mouse capable instrument.

Some instruments respond to touch, front panel controls and a mouse, including the scroll wheel and use of all 3 once you get in tune with it is much much faster than use of any of their individual input mediums.

Sadly until you spend some time with an instrument with this sort of capability you would never know.

I know that the last thing my workbench needs is a dedicated keyboard and mouse for an oscilloscope, or other test instrument, taking up more space.

In general, the fewer buttons I have to push to take a measurement, the better. The more satisfying the knobs / switches are, the less likely I am to be annoyed by using them. Configuring a Tektronix 547 is very satisfying and it's rare that I will be annoyed while using one, even if I have to think a little harder to accomplish a measurement. Pushing soft buttons (that beep with every push!) on a Siglent is the opposite situation.

There was a lot of optimization by the time of the 547 to reduce the number of needed controls.  The 545 was one of the first true "modern" oscilloscopes and the 547 was the ultimate 545.

[tautech]

Never thought I'd be into them much for test equipment until trying a few and you should be aware a touch based UI is required for a mouse capable instrument.

Some instruments respond to touch, front panel controls and a mouse, including the scroll wheel and use of all 3 once you get in tune with it is much much faster than use of any of their individual input mediums.

Sadly until you spend some time with an instrument with this sort of capability you would never know.

I know that the last thing my workbench needs is a dedicated keyboard and mouse for an oscilloscope, or other test instrument, taking up more space.

Unless you're into a lot of annotating the inbuilt virtual qwerty keyboards that you use with a mouse click or touch work just fine. Numeric boxes can be changed with a mouse scrollwheel or clicked to bring up a virtual keypad.
I've now spent a bit of time using DSO's with touch and mouse and best/fastest performance is gained using all 3 input mediums with screen touch actually the least used.
When done the wireless mouse can sit on the shelf alongside the scope.......zero bench real estate is lost, zero. 

All you doubters really need get yourself in front of one.

[nctnico]

I doubt you ever worked with a piece of test equipment that has a touchscreen UI build from the ground up and not a generic UI with touchscreen interface added on. A real touchscreen UI doesn't need keyboard / mouse; it is better compared to using keyboard + mouse.

[james_s]

I don't think I have, although I've used plenty of iPads and similar devices built from the ground up with a touchscreen and I don't like it. I tolerate a touchscreen on my phone because it's the only practical way to make a pocket sized device usable but I don't type up documents or do anything that requires manual precision on my phone.

[tautech]

I doubt you ever worked with a piece of test equipment that has a touchscreen UI build from the ground up and not a generic UI with touchscreen interface added on. A real touchscreen UI doesn't need keyboard / mouse; it is better compared to using keyboard + mouse.

SDS5000X was the first and after came SDS2000X Plus followed by SDS6000A then SDS2000X HD all developed and continually improved from the first Siglent DSO with a touch UI, 5000X that I owned for some years. As any new UI feature was released in time it was rolled out to all other models too.

Now with that outta the way your presumptions are just that, presumptions.
This UI structure allows for physical or touch or mouse control or any combination of the 3 input mediums.

You too as a doubter need get yourself in front of one.

[nctnico]

FFS, I own several pieces of test equipment which have touch UIs which are designed from the ground up to be touch based. For these I never want or need to use a mouse. OTOH I also have various pieces of test equipment of which the UI is not build for touch but nevertheless a touchscreen was added later, which are easier to operate by a mouse for some operations.

[BillyO]

Don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread before, but I had a use case tonight that only my analog scope could help me with and that is being able to trigger independently on two different channels at the same time.  This is something better analog scopes can do but none of my DSOs can.  Well, technically it's not triggering on both signals at exactly the same time, but in alternate mode it shifts the trigger to the channel it is displaying during that sweep.  The effect is both signals, regardless of what frequency they are at, will be displayed properly.

Can any DSO do this?

[bdunham7]

Don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread before, but I had a use case tonight that only my analog scope could help me with and that is being able to trigger independently on two different channels at the same time.  This is something better analog scopes can do but none of my DSOs can.  Well, technically it's not triggering on both signals at exactly the same time, but in alternate mode it shifts the trigger to the channel it is displaying during that sweep.  The effect is both signals, regardless of what frequency they are at, will be displayed properly.

Can any DSO do this?

The Siglent SDS1152CML and and its cousins can do this and they can even have different timebases IIRC.  It's rather unusual for a DSO, common on analog CROs.  I haven't yet seen an actual use case where the SINGLE and ZOOM functions on a DSO couldn't accomplish the task, but I suppose it is possible that there is one.  What were you doing?

[BillyO]

I'm writing software for a 6502 based computer I designed to run two digital to analog converters but was (am) having some issues with the outputs of the two converters going bonkers at times.  It's a software problem, but I wanted to see if it happened at specific frequency combinations .. and it does!  So, now I just have to bend my brain around the assembly code and find the bug(s).

[nctnico]

Don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread before, but I had a use case tonight that only my analog scope could help me with and that is being able to trigger independently on two different channels at the same time.  This is something better analog scopes can do but none of my DSOs can.  Well, technically it's not triggering on both signals at exactly the same time, but in alternate mode it shifts the trigger to the channel it is displaying during that sweep.  The effect is both signals, regardless of what frequency they are at, will be displayed properly.

Can any DSO do this?

Yes. DSOs from GW Instek have this feature. It can be handy in some situations; I have used it a couple of times.

[Whitefoot]

Even my Owon SDS7102 has ALTernate sweep triggering and can trigger on 2 independent signals, both getting the same sweep rate.

You have to be careful thinking of the signals as being displayed properly, since I don't think they are time coincident due to the ALTernate triggering.

[bdunham7]

You have to be careful thinking of the signals as being displayed properly, since I don't think they are time coincident due to the ALTernate triggering.

Yes they aren't.  That's why using a single-shot capture with zoom is often more useful.  Still there may be times when alternate trigger is the easiest way.

[egonotto]

Hello,

The VOLTCRAFT DSO-2074G can operate independently of any of the four channels Triggers.
So different time scales and different trigger thresholds.

It is probably a Hantek DSO3064A.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/experience-with-dso-2074g/

In the picture you can see two 1kHz signals from two Picoscopes of the 5000'er Series.

But I can't see any real benefit.

Best regards
egonotto