Author Topic: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?  (Read 33247 times)

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Offline HighVoltage

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #100 on: August 05, 2019, 10:26:41 am »
I am still using lots of analog scopes for some high voltage measurements. I found the Fluke PM3394B the best for this type of applications. They are purely analog, because the can be switched from analog to digital but I am using both modes.

And ... the front end input on the PM3394B is protected to more than 5kV (DC and AC), try that on any other scope.

On my high voltage bench I sometimes use 6 of them together.



 
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Offline Electro Detective

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #101 on: August 05, 2019, 10:38:33 am »

Now that's a six pack to die for  :-+

 

Offline VK5RC

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #102 on: August 05, 2019, 11:46:28 am »
Reading this topic reminded me of a quote that I recall but can't find it again, I recall it was Chuck Yeager at an airshow - a P51 was being compared to a modern jet and someone was extolling the virtues of the P51 - his reply was to the effect of - don't get sentimental - old gear is fine for restoration - but almost always the most modern is the best - something like don't bring a knife to a gun fight.
If I am serious about repairing something - the dso comes out first. A switch on glitch was found easily.
 I also can't imagine in the Keysight / Fluke / Lecroy main labs there are more analogue than DSO scopes.
Whoah! Watch where that landed we might need it later.
 
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Online David Hess

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #103 on: August 05, 2019, 12:48:33 pm »
And then there's the gone but not quite forgotten analogue storage oscilloscopes with variable persistence,
and some lower bandwidth jobs with split screens etc (anyone remember those awesome beasts?)
that fit somewhere between the two above.

Don't forget the dual beam (not channel) analogue storage scopes. If you are capturing a fast single-shot event, alt mode will miss it and chop mode will mutilate (at best) it. Dual beam removes that dilemma :)

Dual beam storage oscilloscopes all used bistable storage which suffers from a low writing rate so bandwidth was limited to about 25 MHz and most were much slower.  I do not know of any dual beam variable persistence storage oscilloscopes.

Quote
Having said that, nobody used analogue storage scopes because they liked them. You used them when nothing else would capture your problem.

I have a pair if Tektronix 7834 400 MHz variable persistence storage oscilloscopes and the 7834, or even better the 7934 which replaced it, would be my first choice if I could only have one analog oscilloscope.

Reading this topic reminded me of a quote that I recall but can't find it again, I recall it was Chuck Yeager at an airshow - a P51 was being compared to a modern jet and someone was extolling the virtues of the P51 - his reply was to the effect of - don't get sentimental - old gear is fine for restoration - but almost always the most modern is the best - something like don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

If I am serious about repairing something - the dso comes out first. A switch on glitch was found easily.
 I also can't imagine in the Keysight / Fluke / Lecroy main labs there are more analogue than DSO scopes.

The problem with that is what if the modern replacement is lower performance?  For instance no other feature in a modern DSO can make up for higher bandwidth in an older instrument.

Or in my case, one feature I really like on my old oscilloscopes is fast peak-to-peak automatic triggering which no modern DSO supports.  (1) It allows no adjustment operation while quickly probing different areas and changing signals.  Sometimes the older "obsolete" instrument is better.

(1) This feature has become even more relevant as newer DSOs have buried the trigger settings further inside menus making them even slower to operate.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 12:57:37 pm by David Hess »
 

Offline tggzzz

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #104 on: August 05, 2019, 01:58:24 pm »
And then there's the gone but not quite forgotten analogue storage oscilloscopes with variable persistence,
and some lower bandwidth jobs with split screens etc (anyone remember those awesome beasts?)
that fit somewhere between the two above.

Don't forget the dual beam (not channel) analogue storage scopes. If you are capturing a fast single-shot event, alt mode will miss it and chop mode will mutilate (at best) it. Dual beam removes that dilemma :)

Dual beam storage oscilloscopes all used bistable storage which suffers from a low writing rate so bandwidth was limited to about 25 MHz and most were much slower.  I do not know of any dual beam variable persistence storage oscilloscopes.

Telequipment DM63 is dual beam and has a variable persistance,  0.2s to 1minute coverage accordnig to the manual. Fastest timebase is 200ns/div (or 40ns/div), so it can't be classed as "fast".

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Quote
Quote
Having said that, nobody used analogue storage scopes because they liked them. You used them when nothing else would capture your problem.

I have a pair if Tektronix 7834 400 MHz variable persistence storage oscilloscopes and the 7834, or even better the 7934 which replaced it, would be my first choice if I could only have one analog oscilloscope.

Maybe, but it is unlikely anyone ever had a 7k series storage scope as their only scope :)

Quote
Or in my case, one feature I really like on my old oscilloscopes is fast peak-to-peak automatic triggering which no modern DSO supports.  (1) It allows no adjustment operation while quickly probing different areas and changing signals.  Sometimes the older "obsolete" instrument is better.

(1) This feature has become even more relevant as newer DSOs have buried the trigger settings further inside menus making them even slower to operate.

Too true. And more difficult for beginners to realise that there is something that is affecting their ability to find what they need to see.

There's a lot to be said for everything being upfront and visible on the front panel.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 02:07:27 pm by tggzzz »
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Online rsjsouza

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #105 on: August 05, 2019, 02:13:16 pm »
Reading this topic reminded me of a quote that I recall but can't find it again, I recall it was Chuck Yeager at an airshow - a P51 was being compared to a modern jet and someone was extolling the virtues of the P51 - his reply was to the effect of - don't get sentimental - old gear is fine for restoration - but almost always the most modern is the best - something like don't bring a knife to a gun fight.
I think the "almost always" is the key here. The strategists inebriated with the newfangled technology of radar seeking fitted their F4 Phantoms with AIM-7s only and removed the ancient machine gun tech. As per McNamara's words: “…being equipped with a gun is as archaic as warfare with a bow and arrow.”

A similar thing happens with the new tech: the newfangled idea of full digital gives designers are lot of complacency in designing their analog front ends, to the point of having noisy or irregular response front ends on several pieces of gear. Sure, you can reconstruct a lot of digital bits and bytes, but the fidelity of the front end is still key.

Or in my case, one feature I really like on my old oscilloscopes is fast peak-to-peak automatic triggering which no modern DSO supports.  (1) It allows no adjustment operation while quickly probing different areas and changing signals.  Sometimes the older "obsolete" instrument is better.

(1) This feature has become even more relevant as newer DSOs have buried the trigger settings further inside menus making them even slower to operate.

Too true. And more difficult for beginners to realise that there is something that is affecting their ability to find what they need to see.

There's a lot to be said for everything being upfront and visible on the front panel.

 :-+ When talking about menus and such, the interface of older technology tends to be much more accessible - after all, the options are entirely enclosed in the front panel and not hidden under tabs, drawers, doors, etc. (the physical equivalent of soft menus).

The problem is how to aggregate the plethora of new options in such small panel. Sure, a Tek 555 sized gear could probably have enough real state to accommodate all the options in a DS1054Z.

I read this a while ago: https://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-automation/mechanical-engineers-should-design-our-interfaces
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Offline bd139

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #106 on: August 05, 2019, 02:54:28 pm »
Interesting thread.

To answer the original question, yes. Why? Absolutely no idea, like most things I do.

Analogue scopes are unreliable, inferior in almost every way, heavy, consume a ton of power, make the driver do all the legwork, all the parts are unobtainable and a lot of them are quite frankly quite dangerous.  :-//

Anyone want to buy my analogue scopes?  :-DD
 

Offline taydin

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #107 on: August 05, 2019, 03:39:42 pm »
One thing that is great about an analog scope is its educational value. Just for that purpose I have picked up a used CRO a few weeks ago.

CRO's have almost the same user interface, so if you know how to use your Tektronix, you will be able to use the Hameg efficiently in no time. So when you want to teach oscilloscope essentials to a student, it's best to go off of a CRO, because user interface details won't get in the way. All CRO's have trace intensity, trace rotation, input AC/DC/GND, trigger type, Voltage/div, Time/div, horizontal position, vertical position right there on the front panel. No need to hunt for them in menus etc.

Once a student has learned the basics using a CRO, s/he can move on to a DSO with that solid foundation. And with every DSO, you have to learn yet another user interface quirk, and other limitation in such and such feature that the other DSO doesn't have.
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Offline tggzzz

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #108 on: August 05, 2019, 04:55:51 pm »
When talking about menus and such, the interface of older technology tends to be much more accessible - after all, the options are entirely enclosed in the front panel and not hidden under tabs, drawers, doors, etc. (the physical equivalent of soft menus).

The problem is how to aggregate the plethora of new options in such small panel. Sure, a Tek 555 sized gear could probably have enough real state to accommodate all the options in a DS1054Z.

That's a significant issue, of course.

Having too many options is not a benefit. That is true not only for obscure and rarely used options, but also for frequently used options that are buried too deep.

An example of the latter is that a well-regarded small DSO has the display dots or display vectors option buried - and just about every change to any control resets it to the irritating "vector" option :( I like instruments that show me what they actually "know", and don't try to be too clever.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 05:00:22 pm by tggzzz »
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #109 on: August 05, 2019, 05:04:47 pm »
Plenty of the more serious oscilloscopes don't even have a dots option.
 

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #110 on: August 05, 2019, 05:23:38 pm »
An example of the latter is that a well-regarded small DSO has the display dots or display vectors option buried - and just about every change to any control resets it to the irritating "vector" option :( I like instruments that show me what they actually "know", and don't try to be too clever.
Yes - useful options buried six feet under are quite obnoxious, and lacking the ability to save the status or the configs is quite troublesome. I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful wife that allowed me to gift myself a bigger cousin of the well-regarded small DSO and I am able to stay away from several of this and other sins mentioned (and argued to no end) by the owners/detractors of these. :D
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Offline Tom45

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #111 on: August 05, 2019, 05:39:48 pm »
Don't forget the dual beam (not channel) analogue storage scopes.

Dual beam and dual time base with delayed sweep would be easy enough to implement in a DSO. Not cheap, but certainly easy. People instead make do with really deep memory.
 

Offline khs

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #112 on: August 05, 2019, 06:11:13 pm »
Simple answer: yes.
Why:
First I don't trust low cost digital scopes.

Second: Analog scopes like the Tek 7K are quite easy to use. Until the Rigol ready to use the measurement with the analog scope is finished.

Additional a 7K mainframe with a 7D15 and a 7D12 is a digital voltmeter and a counter so I can see the signal and get the measurement value with up to 7 digits...

But as you can see in the picture the Rigol is a great logic analyzer. So I use and need both.
 

Offline tggzzz

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #113 on: August 05, 2019, 06:45:33 pm »
Don't forget the dual beam (not channel) analogue storage scopes.

Dual beam and dual time base with delayed sweep would be easy enough to implement in a DSO. Not cheap, but certainly easy. People instead make do with really deep memory.

Dual beam is implemented simply by having a single ADC for every input channel. It only costs more and requires more memory bandwidth.

You definitely don't want to play around with altering the ADC clock rate. Any mechanism to do that would add jitter, and that's a no no.

You could implement a delayed sweep by simply not clocking data into memory until the relevant number of samples after the trigger occurred, but that would mean you couldn't see the pre-trigger data thus losing a major advantage of digitising scopes. Avoiding that requires storing all the incoming samples in case a trigger arrives later, and that might mean a deep memory. But memory is cheap, so that's a good tradeoff.

Early digitising scopes used a CCD to sample and store the waveform, typically limited to the 1024 samples shown on a screen. Such shallow memory was a necessary evil, but is of limited use and should be avoided.
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Offline james_s

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #114 on: August 05, 2019, 08:30:48 pm »
An example of the latter is that a well-regarded small DSO has the display dots or display vectors option buried - and just about every change to any control resets it to the irritating "vector" option :( I like instruments that show me what they actually "know", and don't try to be too clever.
Yes - useful options buried six feet under are quite obnoxious, and lacking the ability to save the status or the configs is quite troublesome. I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful wife that allowed me to gift myself a bigger cousin of the well-regarded small DSO and I am able to stay away from several of this and other sins mentioned (and argued to no end) by the owners/detractors of these. :D

Having commonly used features buried is a plague affecting far more than scopes. It drives me crazy in cars, and my iPhone's web browser auto-hides the navigation bar requiring an extra tap every single time to bring it up. This sort of thing is an infuriating result from minimalist dweebs obsessed with making a "clean" looking interface.
 
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Offline 0culus

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #115 on: August 05, 2019, 08:39:44 pm »
An example of the latter is that a well-regarded small DSO has the display dots or display vectors option buried - and just about every change to any control resets it to the irritating "vector" option :( I like instruments that show me what they actually "know", and don't try to be too clever.
Yes - useful options buried six feet under are quite obnoxious, and lacking the ability to save the status or the configs is quite troublesome. I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful wife that allowed me to gift myself a bigger cousin of the well-regarded small DSO and I am able to stay away from several of this and other sins mentioned (and argued to no end) by the owners/detractors of these. :D

Having commonly used features buried is a plague affecting far more than scopes. It drives me crazy in cars, and my iPhone's web browser auto-hides the navigation bar requiring an extra tap every single time to bring it up. This sort of thing is an infuriating result from minimalist dweebs obsessed with making a "clean" looking interface.

100% agreed. At least, provide enough customization that people who want to can set it up how they like. At least Apple provides a pain free way to remap caps lock to escape on touchbar macbooks. That's a trivial example, but we need more.
 

Online tautech

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #116 on: August 05, 2019, 08:43:01 pm »
An example of the latter is that a well-regarded small DSO has the display dots or display vectors option buried - and just about every change to any control resets it to the irritating "vector" option :( I like instruments that show me what they actually "know", and don't try to be too clever.
Yes - useful options buried six feet under are quite obnoxious, and lacking the ability to save the status or the configs is quite troublesome. I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful wife that allowed me to gift myself a bigger cousin of the well-regarded small DSO and I am able to stay away from several of this and other sins mentioned (and argued to no end) by the owners/detractors of these. :D

Having commonly used features buried is a plague affecting far more than scopes. It drives me crazy in cars, and my iPhone's web browser auto-hides the navigation bar requiring an extra tap every single time to bring it up. This sort of thing is an infuriating result from minimalist dweebs obsessed with making a "clean" looking interface.
It's less of an issue in a well laid/thought out UI and less again with a touch display.
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Offline GregDunn

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #117 on: August 05, 2019, 09:13:07 pm »
Interesting thread.

To answer the original question, yes. Why? Absolutely no idea, like most things I do.

Analogue scopes are unreliable, inferior in almost every way, heavy, consume a ton of power, make the driver do all the legwork, all the parts are unobtainable and a lot of them are quite frankly quite dangerous.  :-//

Anyone want to buy my analogue scopes?  :-DD

I still have an analog scope - my original Tek 922.  All I do is audio, so I don't need anything higher bandwidth; there's plenty of that to let me see noise and hash on a signal.  The Siglent has 10x the bandwidth of the Tek, and even 500 Msps is far more than I use.  What I DO need is a display which doesn't need the options of "focus", "chop" or "alternate" - some of the things which always bugged me on analog scopes.  Digital displays take care of this by nature, as well as making things like delayed trigger and measurements/math part of the built-in capabilities - even with 4 channels to display.  And if I need to carry it to the stereo or AV system for a direct look at the signals, that's a one-handed task.   Since I got my Siglent, I have only turned the Tek on a couple of times.
 

Offline Electro Detective

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #118 on: August 05, 2019, 11:33:25 pm »

For a quickie no brainer 'get in and get out' measurement hook up, dial up, and trigger of a mystery source,

the DSO can still be at the starting gate, whereas the analogue cro has supplied the relevant eye candy data, powered down, and back in the stable   :clap:

And that's why you don't see analogue scopes on nature strips, nor in pawn establishments (unless they are wacked off or knackered)


In fairness to the DSO, I have presets with notes scribbled down if I need to 'fix' the horse race  ;D
     
 

Offline maginnovision

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #119 on: August 06, 2019, 12:24:46 am »
I'm not sure... Why is simply being an analog scope so much faster for you all?
 

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #120 on: August 06, 2019, 01:26:37 am »
If you can find an good working one, why not,  go for it OP

Like highvoltage said  you have pretty good model(s) going strong,   my friend has an old phillips model,  works pretty well, and less jumpy in the controls like the tds1210b i have, the controls encoders have begun to play tricks ... erk

For me the tds1012b  with the autovoltage range is a life saver for me.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #121 on: August 06, 2019, 02:45:38 am »

Why do you ask is more important ?
 
I use one. But is it time to upgrade to DSO now?

You currently have no ability to capture a single shot or non-repetitive waveform and analyse it. That an enormous gap in electronics troubleshooting.
 

Online coromonadalix

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #122 on: August 06, 2019, 02:58:01 am »
Sure, it will depend on your needs,   actually i just need basic functionalities for rf calibrations,  but an mso and a dso are used in other depts in my company.

And the hackable "cough"  loll  models threads are more than welcome ...
 

Offline Tom45

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #123 on: August 06, 2019, 03:43:11 am »

Dual beam is implemented simply by having a single ADC for every input channel. It only costs more and requires more memory bandwidth.

You definitely don't want to play around with altering the ADC clock rate. Any mechanism to do that would add jitter, and that's a no no.

It takes more than just an ADC per input to implement dual beam functionality. For each ADC there should be an independent time base and triggering circuitry. A dual beam scope is really two separate scopes that share only the phosphor on the CRT. Well, and power supplies I suppose.

You could implement a delayed sweep by simply not clocking data into memory until the relevant number of samples after the trigger occurred, but that would mean you couldn't see the pre-trigger data thus losing a major advantage of digitising scopes. Avoiding that requires storing all the incoming samples in case a trigger arrives later, and that might mean a deep memory. But memory is cheap, so that's a good tradeoff.

With delayed sweep you see two traces for each input: The main trace with the A timebase, and an expanded trace running at the faster B timebase. The portion displayed by the B timebase trace is intensified on the A timebase trace which gives the context. Note that the dual time base feature  exists for single as well as dual beam scopes.

For those of us that grew up with dual time base scopes, it is second nature to pull the time/div knob and rotate it clockwise to get the faster B sweep speed.
 

Online David Hess

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Re: Do You still use analog oscilloscopes in 2019?
« Reply #124 on: August 06, 2019, 04:49:42 am »
Dual beam storage oscilloscopes all used bistable storage which suffers from a low writing rate so bandwidth was limited to about 25 MHz and most were much slower.  I do not know of any dual beam variable persistence storage oscilloscopes.

Telequipment DM63 is dual beam and has a variable persistance,  0.2s to 1minute coverage accordnig to the manual. Fastest timebase is 200ns/div (or 40ns/div), so it can't be classed as "fast".

The DM63 is 15 MHz so one of the faster bistable storage oscilloscopes.

The problem is simply that the bistable storage mode supports a much lower writing rate than variable persistence storage.  Some bistable storage oscilloscopes supported a repetitive write mode which used multiple sweeps to allow storage at higher bandwidths but this precludes single shot acquisitions.

Quote
Quote
Quote
Having said that, nobody used analogue storage scopes because they liked them. You used them when nothing else would capture your problem.

I have a pair if Tektronix 7834 400 MHz variable persistence storage oscilloscopes and the 7834, or even better the 7934 which replaced it, would be my first choice if I could only have one analog oscilloscope.

Maybe, but it is unlikely anyone ever had a 7k series storage scope as their only scope :)

I actually thought my 7834 had a bright and sharp CRT until I got a 7904.

Quote
Quote
Or in my case, one feature I really like on my old oscilloscopes is fast peak-to-peak automatic triggering which no modern DSO supports.  (1) It allows no adjustment operation while quickly probing different areas and changing signals.  Sometimes the older "obsolete" instrument is better.

(1) This feature has become even more relevant as newer DSOs have buried the trigger settings further inside menus making them even slower to operate.

Too true. And more difficult for beginners to realise that there is something that is affecting their ability to find what they need to see.

There's a lot to be said for everything being upfront and visible on the front panel.

I do not know why oscilloscopes including analog ones made after about 1990 do not support this mode of triggering.  For analog oscilloscopes it sort of makes sense because it requires some extra trigger circuits but DSOs should be able to do it for free with just a software change.  My guess is that by the time DSOs became common, this feature was already depricated from analog oscilloscopes so the designers of DSOs were simply not aware of it.
 


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