[...] making the best use of whatever sampling rate the hardware can provide is still going to make for a better scope.
Not if 'making best use of' costs more than greater sampling rate.
I'm not sure that is what we see in the real world. For example, it would have been cheaper for Ford to just put a stonking big V8 in the Mustang to get 330 horses instead of a tricked out 4 cylinder, but they chose not to do that...
In the same way, low to mid range scopes probably have to use hardware that is available at a reasonable cost. Engineers can choose to put it together in creative ways, and maybe double up on some of the chips to interleave or otherwise boost performance. Using software creatively is going to be irresistible to most teams!
it would have been cheaper for Ford to just put a stonking big V8 in the Mustang to get 330 horses instead of a tricked out 4 cylinder
I'm not sure that is what we see in the real world. For example, it would have been cheaper for Ford to just put a stonking big V8 in the Mustang to get 330 horses instead of a tricked out 4 cylinder, but they chose not to do that...
In the same way, low to mid range scopes probably have to use hardware that is available at a reasonable cost. Engineers can choose to put it together in creative ways, and maybe double up on some of the chips to interleave or otherwise boost performance. Using software creatively is going to be irresistible to most teams!
You can't analyze Ford's decision until you look at the regulatory picture--emissions and fuel economy--and know the actual costs involved. They've been stuffing 2.3 Turbos in Mustangs for 40 years, on and off. It is getting expensive to get larger engines through emissions as well. And believe me, if I know Ford (and I do) they have wrung out the costs in that EcoBoost pretty thoroughly.
As for scopes, my fairly old Tek TPS 2024 uses 2GSa/S. They have a 100MHz version that uses 1GSa/S. So to go to 200MHz, their best solution was to increase the sample rate to maintain fs/10. I'm sure they aren't idiots and I'm sure that increase cost some money--but that is what they did. Until I see actual acceptable performance from lower rates in an economy scope, I'm not going to assume it is easy or should be a given.
it would have been cheaper for Ford to just put a stonking big V8 in the Mustang to get 330 horses instead of a tricked out 4 cylinder
I bet you the entire Internet that the tricked out 4 cylinder was chosen to maximize their profits.
Just in case there are people reading this who are actually interested in in my original project of comparing low end scopes, I created [email protected] a while back when this thread got out of control. If you are interested in scope evaluations I invite you to join. It will be moderated to prevent the level of sheer idiocy that has dominated this thread. Join the group, but don't post and if enough people join I'll repost stuff from this thread and we can continue discussing what is right, wrong and a "feature" of DSOs.Suggestion: Since this isn't the first time you've gone this route, maybe it would be more efficient to launch your next thread on groups.io, so you can maintain control of the content from the beginning.
...., some people are just born to run echo chambers.
[...]
For example, the dithering of samples that HP/Agilent introduced. It seems to me that by dithering the samples slightly, you end up with more fine grained results that would otherwise have to come from using a much higher sample rate - but the "punishment" is probably a longer acquisition time, as the dithered samples slowly build up the complete picture?
ETS (Equivalent Time Sampling) resolution is only limited by the ability to time the samples, given a repetitive signal. I think earlier Rigols even had it, but they've dropped it as a feature, which I'm guessing is because of how the trigger is implemented now. You still get a sort of random dot-walk effect that will give you a picture similar to an old ETS scope but this is not controlled and is due to the varied relationship between the trigger point and the sampling points.
I don't think the dithering that HP did (still does?) is the same at ETS?
If you have a constant e.g. 200MSa/s, and you can dither the samples e.g. by 5 discrete steps, you end up with a "slow" 1GSa/s.
Maybe that effectively is actually the same as equivalent time sampling, just done by random steps instead of one long linear sequence?





-45MHz-Square--fNyq-25MHz-decimated-samplefreq-50MHz.gif)

For increased revenue in the new "value chain" there could be large fines for learners caught speeding - going over 50us/div, or they could even be banned for driving while aliased. 
Sari and no aliasing
Even simple cheap tools have many features what user need be familiar. Too many times we use example scopes like "this is how I always have done" instead of thinking if it is always wise. Many hate dots mode but do not overlook it even when it is best in some situations, do not too much think polished nice picture, think what you need know about signal and nothing else. Modern DPO scopes can do lot of better than conventional DSO
I like that bottom 1 sample per waveform dots+persistence waveform, but won't the trigger position still have 22 1ns samples per waveform cycle to work with, is it still as good when the trigger only has 5 or 6 samples per waveform cycle to work with.
OTH, I can easily recognize that doing a 1 or 2 chips scope is a massive endeavour. My deep respect for those guys (US, chinese, germans, etc). And, some times, we take these equipments to debug our own 1-processor circuit!! And we like to expect/demand the equipment to be flawless and be as cheap as possible!
Agree!!
To be honest, I would like to apologize everybody for being persistent. I was really ticked off by " My goal in this is to embarrass the OEMs into improving their products.".
It just bothers me. The older I am, I seem to have harder time letting go.. I will be one grumpy old man one day...Yes Reg certainly went out on a limb stating that.
Here's another thread investigating similar scope response characteristics:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/oscilloscope-frequency-response-correction-program/Fungus
A previous life used to run a race team
You may laugh my personal occasional ride has 1400lbs torque with two turbos and nitrous but propane to go with the gas it weighs 1300kg, here's the rub it's a diesel. The last set of rollers we tested it it broke the retardation device
Always exceptions to rule i would agree
Lots of ways of skinning a cat
Sorry back on topic
Topic !
Reg has left the nest in disgust of all of us.
Been involved with a tiny bit of drag racing too helping the neighbor reach deadlines for meets.
All rotary powered, some 2r, some 3r, NA and turbed.
20B on meth and 40lb boost. First runs on hub dyno getting a basic tune. At a later date pushed to 1400 HP.
Been involved with a tiny bit of drag racing too helping the neighbor reach deadlines for meets.
All rotary powered, some 2r, some 3r, NA and turbed.
20B on meth and 40lb boost. First runs on hub dyno getting a basic tune. At a later date pushed to 1400 HP.Looks like a nice setup. I've worked on a few home made dynos. One was a toy model to play with the controls, two were larger water brakes limited to around 100HP or so. Mostly I was putting together software and the electronics for them.
You can see my toy one here. While I have zero interest in the RC toys, I came across the group from my research and decided to post there.
https://www.msuk-forum.co.uk/forums/topic/81512-self-built-rc-dyno/?do=findComment&comment=1013094

For the bike, I just collect the data from driving it. It hardly makes enough power to run your friends cars starter motor.![]()
Sorry for adding to the noise. I have a soft spot for things that are fast.


Never did drag cars, just built the engines for the owners they gave the 1/4 mile what for

Well that went well.
Perhapsnewall users should have to go on a course and get a licence before they're allowed to drive a scope.For increased revenue in the new "value chain" there could be large fines for learners caught speeding - going over 50us/div, or they could even be banned for driving while aliased.
I'm here all week.(rf-loop edit: /removed image from quote/ look it in orig quoted msg.)
Sari and no aliasing
Even simple cheap tools have many features what user need be familiar. Too many times we use example scopes like "this is how I always have done" instead of thinking if it is always wise. Many hate dots mode but do not overlook it even when it is best in some situations, do not too much think polished nice picture, think what you need know about signal and nothing else. Modern DPO scopes can do lot of better than conventional DSO
I like that bottom 1 sample per waveform dots+persistance waveform, but won't the trigger position still have 22 1ns samples per waveform cycle to work with, is it still as good when the trigger only has 5 or 6 samples per waveform cycle to work with.
Gentlemen, start you engines elsewhere!!!! Or I'll be going groups.io...
Gentlemen, start you engines elsewhere!!!! Or I'll be going groups.io...

it would have been cheaper for Ford to just put a stonking big V8 in the Mustang to get 330 horses instead of a tricked out 4 cylinder
I bet you the entire Internet that the tricked out 4 cylinder was chosen to maximize their profits.
4 cilinder is cheaper to make. Less moving parts to assemble. 8 cylinder V engine literally has two heads compared to 4 cylinders one. And then crankshaft, bearings...
And one thing is also important: blown 4 cylinder is smaller and lighter... Not only cheaper engine, but easier to design it into car...
They likely never would have designed that engine if it weren't for emissions standards. Adding turbos that have high reliability is not as cheap and easy a job as throwing it on your civic which can eat an engine a year. The intake and exhaust plumbing, extra oil and water lines, carbon build-up due to direct injection, and the direct injection components(high pressure fuel system)... If emissions weren't such an issue they would definitely just use a high output V8, just like they did before when emissions weren't as stringent(and they continue to tighten).
For good measure add in the required oil cooler so you don't ruin turbos, for high output engine you need intercoolers, and turbos are not cheap either. I'm betting an equivalent output V8 could be manufactured for less. Probably far less and there might not even be any weight savings because most of those turbo 4's use iron blocks(I may be behind the times here) but an NA V8 has no issues with aluminum.

I wanted to add few more observation, looking at discussion here.
But if we go with option 3. (downsampling by filtering), as suggested, we will filter out anything above 10 MHz..
On spectrum analyser, we would be looking at scale of 0-10 MHz and see nice clean spectra of that without any folding from upper bandwidth. Perfect.
What we will see on the screen of oscilloscope ?It's all wrong. Look at your samplerates and then think about how that aliases with your 50MHz carrier. If you do these kind of tests you need to use an 'odd' frequency like 33MHz. You'll see you can only get a good picture with lower samplerates when you turn peak-detect on.
As mentioned before: if you low-pass filter a signal you'll lose the high frequency content. Think about how a basic AM demodulator works; that is not a low-pass filter but an envelope detector. Do the same test with 20MHz bandwidth on and off and you'll see.
(Attachment Link)
This is an AM modulated signal using an 8.33MHz carrier and 100Hz modulation. Peak detect is on. Trace 1 (top) is unfiltered, trace 3 (bottom) is filtered using a 600kHz low-pass filter. I hope that this makes it very clear that anti-aliasing filtering based on the samplerate is a really bad idea on an oscilloscope.