Software Oscilloscopes?

[RossW]

Has anyone ever tried hooking up a PIC to a Windows software oscilloscope program? I googled "oscilloscope software" and came up with these links:

http://polly.phys.msu.su/~zeld/oscill.html

http://www.digitalfilter.com/sftosc/sftosc.html

As this just uses the microphone jack of a 16 bit sound card as input, this would be the cheapest way for me to scope an output of a PIC (Actual, real live 'scopes are out of my price range)

Ross

[Dwayne]

Hello RossW,

On the scopes... They have scopes out there that are extremely cheap. I realize that "cheap" is relative in terms, but I am talking about less than 50 dollars... down to 10 and 20 dollars. Granted, they are 20 mhz scopes, (or 10mhz sometimes), but they will do the job for you quite well, and you do not have to "endanger" a nice computer.

I used to run a IFR spectrum Analyzer....It smoked cigarettes, drank beer, and turned on the TV for you. 1GHZ machine... I ended up selling it on ebay, putting money in my pocket. I still use my older 20mhz scope I bought for 25 dollars. You can get "Trigger happy" with it <g>.

The picture is not "fancy" like the IFR, but it does very nice for me. The only thing I do not like to read off of it (which I can read if I want, but it is a little more difficult), is the pulses for serial communication. If I want to see the letter "A", it shows it, but I have to "imagine" the rises and drops of the 5 volt signal. So, I switch to my Fluke 123.

Dwayne

[NavMicroSystems]

Originally posted by RossW
Has anyone ever tried hooking up a PIC to a Windows software oscilloscope program? I googled "oscilloscope software" and came up with these links:

http://polly.phys.msu.su/~zeld/oscill.html

http://www.digitalfilter.com/sftosc/sftosc.html

As this just uses the microphone jack of a 16 bit sound card as input, this would be the cheapest way for me to scope an output of a PIC (Actual, real live 'scopes are out of my price range)

Ross

Ross,

I have tried some of the "oscilloscope" software some time ago and came to the conclusion a simple LED would do almost the same job.
The "software-only" solutions are ways too slow and many features are missing.

Have you searched ebay for an oscilloscope?

I have got a Dual Channel 20MHz Scope (including 1 good Probe) for $50 on ebay.

[RossW]

No, I haven't checked out eBay, but most stuff like that comes from American sellers, and once you convert everything to Canadian dollars it gets very pricey. There are a few electronic surplus stores around, though, so maybe I'll check them out.

Ross