Parallax USB scope

[victorf57]

I just went to the parallax site and saw a sale of their USB scope.
AT $99.00 it seeems like a great deal.
it's listed under their daily deal but I think it will go through the weekend?

http://www.parallax.com/Store/Access...me,ProductName

Vic.

[Melanie]

But what kind of signals do you want to look at? It's barely good enough for (poor quality) Audio work!

[victorf57]

Yes it is slow.
But at this point I have nothing, and the price is right .
I'm also looking at this one
http://www.hobbylab.us/default.aspx
The scope seem slower but it does have an analyzer .
Vic

[Melanie]

Why does HP sell an Audio Spectrum Analyser for $20K when for five bucks you can buy the software to turn your Audio Line Input Port on your PC into a Spectrum Analyser?

It all depends on your needs. Even if I was a hobbyist, I would want equipment that could do serious work... because somewhere down the line you never know you might end up with some paying work and your toy-town instruments just won't cut it. If you're playing with PICs, you want to go and be able to sample and display 10MHz logic signals at the very minimum. 200kHz bandwidth is just lame.

[Ioannis]

If you want a digital analyzer look at this: http://www.saleae.com/logic/

I 've got just the right moment and solved a problem that I had for 4-5 years!

It was a glitch that I could not catch it on my Tektronix TDS2012...

Then if you want analog signals, follow what Melanie said and find a decent equipment even refurbrished (It was the AFG3022 that I got this way).

Ioannis

[dhouston]

I concur with Melanie and Ioannis. The Parallax scope does what it does reasonably well but what it does is extremely limited. I keep an old PC running W98SE just so I can continue to use my Protek 220 oscilloscope card which requires an ISA slot. The Protek 220 is no longer available but, when it was, sold for about $100. It's a shame that they have not made a PCI version.

• http://www.gigatest.net/hungchang/protek-220.htm