1. Home
  2. General Electronics
  3. Linux PC as oscilloscope

Linux PC as oscilloscope

I've seen some free software for using one's PC under Linux as an oscilloscope. Before I get bogged down trying to do this, I'd be interested in hearing from other people who have used such software. I'm talking about RedHat Linux, not RT Linux, so I'm concerned about real time problems. Also, I don't know what kind of speed the oscilloscope is capable of. I have two old EICO 460 oscilloscopes and I am inclined to believe that the Linux PC as oscilloscope will be better than they are, but it would still be nice to know definitely. More generally, what would be the closest model oscilloscope to the PC oscilloscope in terms of its capabilities and reliability?

Ignorantly, Allan Adler snipped-for-privacy@zurich.ai.mit.edu

****************************************************************************
  • *
  • Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT Artificial *
  • Intelligence Lab. My actions and comments do not reflect *
  • in any way on MIT. Moreover, I am nowhere near the Boston *
  • metropolitan area. *
  • *
****************************************************************************
Reply to
Allan Adler
Loading thread data ...

On 07 Aug 2003 23:28:07 -0400, Allan Adler Gave us:

Does this not also require that a data acquisition card be in the PC?

I doubt seriously that the sample rate would be over 10MHz even..... if that much. And the iteration of it will be quite "grainy" as well, I'm sure.

There are really nice data acquisition cards out there for less than $150, That'll do some VERY fast sampling rates.

Nat'l Instruments... yada yada yada.

Reply to
DarkMatter

If you're talking of scope.c which is provided (or at least used to be) with svgalib, then it is just a sound card sampler which displays the recorded data on screen => your max sampling rate is something like 46 kHz and resolution is around

16 bits. Nothing to compare with a real oscilloscope (assuming the LSB of your sound card is relevant).

Now depending on your application, the interesting aspect of such a program is that you can customize the trigger function (only start recording when a given event occurs).

Jean-Michel

Reply to
Jean-Michel Friedt

400 bucks, 100MHz scope for Linux:
formatting link

A radio-shack 20Ms/S scope:

formatting link

The bottom of the second page has a bunch of links.

Blake

--
Drop 'pants' to reply by email
Reply to
Blake

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 13:15:48 GMT, Blake Gave us:

It isn't just software. It requires an EPP port.

That means that they have a device that you hook up to get the data.

100MHz and parallel ports don't seem to mix, to me. The device must merely send a low resolution data stream to the scope, giving the observer a dithered view of the real data.

Not what I would call high resolve. I'd bet that a lot of information on a 100MHz signal would be unviewable to the user of the product.

Reply to
DarkMatter

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.