exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

I'm not sure as unfortunately both my devices turn out to be vendor software locked.

I'm wondering if I just be better getting a 4 channel scope. A cheap one such as "OWON SDS1104 4-Channel Oscilloscope 7'' inch LCD Display 100MHZ Bandwidth 1GS/S"

Though not sure if that's 100MHZ across all 4 channels, 25MHz be a bit pants when working with 32MHz clocks .

EDIT:

According to a article

https://www.mouser.com/pdfdocs/Tektroni ... sider1.pdf

Get both. :D

I find that scopes and logic analyzers solve distinct measurement tasks. I would not want to miss either my 4-channel scope (Rigol), nor my Saleae logic analyzer. Let's face it: If you're looking for logic analysis (e.g., protocol decoding or very long captures), a scope is just a poor substitute. (On the other hand, the analog inputs of a logic analyzer are a poor substitute for a proper scope.)

Yeah both have their uses. But it's the amount of use vs the price and storage of all the stuff which is the problem for me. I'm not really planning on any more hardware work, but of course finding existing problems is rather difficult with only a 2 channel scope.

exxos wrote: 21 May 2023 12:29 I'm wondering if I just be better getting a 4 channel scope. A cheap one such as "OWON SDS1104 4-Channel Oscilloscope 7'' inch LCD Display 100MHZ Bandwidth 1GS/S"

Though not sure if thats 100MHZ across all 4 channels, 25MHz be a bit pants when working with 32MHz clocks .

Yes, the bandwidth is divided by 4 when using 3/4 channels.

That's why I limited myself to a 2-channels scope. That said, mine has an "external trigger" port in addition to the probe ports. I am wondering whether that would allow to synchronize the capture of two 2 channels scope. Of course the setting of the trigger and the calibration would be a PITA.

I don’t think it’s the bandwidth that is shared, but the sample rate.

I have a Siglent 1104X-E. Pretty happy with it, can be improved by software alterations. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/ ... p-by-step/

exxos wrote: 21 May 2023 12:53 Yeah both have their uses. But its the amount of use vs the price and storage of all the stuff which is the problem for me. I'm not really planning on any more hardware work, but of course finding existing problems is rather difficult with only a 2 channel scope.

Considering that you already have a decent 2-channel scope, IMHO, I would chose a logic analyzer over a 4-channel scope. In the case you are currently working, the issue with the PICO Hard Disk emulator and the booster, you need to trace more than 4 signals, and you need a long a capture.

Problem is, again, that the chip shortage have sky rocketed LA prices because they are usually manufactured by small companies. OTOH, scopes prices were not affected nearly so much because we are talking about big companies.

I have a 16 channel Salae knockoff. Uses the Salae software (which is excellent), but can only stream three channels at full speed (100MHz, IIRC) and starts to drop down in frequency as you add more channels.

I use this for 95+% of the time.

I've also a Hantek analyser which is faster and stores locally so it can do all channels at full speed, but the software is eye-gougingly terrible.

This works well for snapshotting one exact thing you can trigger on and that only lasts a few milliseconds, but not a lot else. If I need to know the state of a whole bunch of lines when a rare event occurs it's useful. But that's about it.

BW

I must have had my LA working at some point. Though seeing as it's on my laptop, I now half recall I couldn't ever get the software working on my pc.


The image was from 7 years ago. I don't even have XP on my laptop any more. No idea what software it was.

Its protocol has been reversed and is supported by Sigrok it seems
https://sigrok.org/wiki/Sysclk_LWLA1034