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Is this ancient O-Scope I PC based oscilloscope usable?
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Joebeazelman:
I bought an ancient O-Scope I PC-based oscilloscope at a yard sale for $5. It's made by Allison Technology and has a BNC connector, a parallel connector and a power input. I was able to find a web page on the product, but the the company claims it is closed and directs visitors to Pico technologies. The site's design looks like an Arpanet holdout:
http://www.atcweb.com/oscope.htm
Is this oscilloscope useful? Is there any software available for it? Any other information would be greatly helpful. Thanks in advance.
abeyer:
--- Quote from: Joebeazelman on June 06, 2023, 12:32:02 am ---Is this oscilloscope useful? Is there any software available for it?
--- End quote ---
I'm sure it's possible to make it work... but it doesn't seem worthwhile unless it's just for fun.
Even if you track down a copy of the ancient software, you still have the issue of needing a machine to run it on that can run old 16 bit dos software and has a hardware parallel port. And assuming you get all that set up, you end up with a single channel 22kHz scope. :-//
You're likely better off just going with some modern "sound card scope" software, or a cheap aliexpress scope board.
james_s:
If you can find the software it may be of some interest to vintage PC enthusiasts but given the modest capability it probably isn't going to be all that useful. You could open it up and take a look at the hardware, it's likely little more than a ADC chip and analog front end. From the look of the thing I'd guess it is early 90s vintage.
alm:
I'd say no, it's not useful except maybe for the case with the BNC connector. If it uses a parallel interface, then the software was likely bit-banging this interface, which does not work at all with modern USB to parallel converters. So you'll need to find a computer old enough to still have an internal parallel port (or ISA/PCI card with a parallel port), never mind run the software. And this will give you a scope with 50 kHz bandwidth (according to the link) and a tiny memory depth (500 sample points according to the same website)?
In the US you might be able to pick up a 20 MHz dual channel analog scope for a similar price (if you can find one locally) that's vastly more useful than this.
Fungus:
C'mon dude, open it up and show us the insides... :palm:
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