PC as oscilloscope

Can anybody share your experience of using PC as oscilloscope? What
kind of hardware and software do you use? I like to start with
evaluation of various options (thru soundcard/internal card/ external
attachment etc.).

My requirements are not advanced. I am looking for an aid to my self
study of electronics. This should help me thru basic electronics to
audio amps/ basic timer circuits.

Thanks in advance for any inputs you can give.

Regi

 

In a manner of speaking, you already have a sort of oscilloscope
in your computer, if it's typical: the sound card and Windoze's own
Sound Recorder, which displays the waveform as it records. Heck,
you can tell people you've got a digital storage scope! Perfectly
fine for audio frequencies.

Good Luck!
Rich

 

Contrary to popular belief, PCs are not the Answer to Everything
in the test equipment world. By the time you get done kitting out a PC
to try and imitate an O-scope, you will likely have exceeded the cost of
buying a decent used Tektronix, and the Tek will give you far better
performance and value for your $$.

Example: Just a while back, I bought a nice Tektronix 7603 100MHz
mainframe at the Tektronix surplus store for $15.00. A time base and
vertical plug-in for it can be had together for less than $100,
resulting in a very high-quality 'scope for about the cost of a used PC
alone.

7603's, and lots of other Tektronix goodies, turn up on Ebay
constantly, as well as at ham radio swap meets. You can locate said swap
meets by checking with whatever ham radio club is local to your area, a
list of which may be found at http://www.arrl.org

Indeed it will. 100MHz bandwidth will see you through for a long
stretch indeed.

Would that be 50-ohm or 1M-ohm? ;-)

Good hunting.