[sdiy] scopes

[metasonix]

>DeVrys (sp?) Institute used to sell electronics courses and you built a
>little 2" oscilloscope as part of the training. I repackaged the little
>scope into a module that you slid 35mm slides into as an optical waveshaper.
>It took another 25 years before it occurred to me that an ADC->EPROM->DAC
>did the same thing, but much better. Doh!

Smaller and with lower power, yes, but "better"?

Los Alamos Lab once made a flying-spot scanner for use with their
ultra-high-speed MCP oscilloscopes. As I recall, they could successfully
detect and store single-event pulses with risetimes of 80 picoseconds
or better. The thing used a mirror scanner rotating at 12,000 rpm and a PMT. 
They had to do this to observe transducer outputs associated with
nuclear-weapon test firings. (Can any available ADC chip do this, Grant?)




uncle eric
metasonix.com