Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

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ral-clan
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by ral-clan »

Hi,

This oscilloscope has come up for sale in my area. Apparently working:

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/telequip_o ... 67d_6.html

Telequipment D67. A British subsidiary of Tektronix. Made between 1971-75. 25Mhz two channel.
A little old. But if I can get it for $50 or less, worth the risk perhaps? Or a waste of money?

If it were guaranteed working it would probably be perfect for my basic needs...but I'm a little wary of its age (40 years).
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eslapion
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by eslapion »

ral-clan wrote:If it were guaranteed working it would probably be perfect for my basic needs...but I'm a little wary of its age (40 years).
I think you should be.

I remember mrr19121970 posted this link in another thread: http://www.ebay.com/itm/121985263172
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by groepaz »

for 50 bucks i'd do it.... also if you didnt use a scope before, those old things are much easier to handle than the modern ones
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eslapion
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by eslapion »

groepaz wrote:... those old things are much easier to handle than the modern ones
:shock:

Having a DSO, I find very much the opposite to be true.

The "AUTO SET" button comes to mind but it's not the only functionality which may make it much easier to use, far from it.

As I said earlier, I strongly feel older scopes are more difficult to use but you do get to learn more by using them.
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Gyro Gearloose
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

I protest! You don't need a DSO to get autoset! Tektronix had this in 1965:

http://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/3A5

OK, so they called it "seek", but whatever.
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by groepaz »

pfff autoset. what kind of wussies need that? =) (and yes, my 30yr old philips can do it too)
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Mike
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by Mike »

groepaz wrote:pfff autoset. what kind of wussies need that? =) (and yes, my 30yr old philips can do it too)
Especially with single short pulses, where one has essentially only one try to test the correct function of a system:

Image

Image

Those are two short (~4 µs) high voltage pulses of -5 kV resp. -9 kV peak, on the return of a crowbar for two systems. The trigger had to be set on a negative edge, and a good guess on the negative trigger voltage had to be made. And, of course, also another good guess for the time base. As I said, one try for each system. :)
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by eslapion »

groepaz wrote:pfff autoset. what kind of wussies need that? =) (and yes, my 30yr old philips can do it too)
I suppose your Philips can also capture a single pulse and show you what occurred BEFORE the trigger too ?

Your Philips has a "PRINT SCREEN" button too ?
:roll:
Mike wrote:Especially with single short pulses, where one has essentially only one try to test the correct function of a system:
Perhaps you haven't noticed but the TDS 210 is a DSO too, you know.

That's why you can capture your single negative pulse to screen...
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by groepaz »

I suppose your Philips can also capture a single pulse and show you what occurred BEFORE the trigger too ? Your Philips has a "PRINT SCREEN" button too ?
it can do "negative trigger delay", yes. it can't do "print screen" as such - but you can connect another device via rs232 (or ieee488) and dump the recorded data to it. it also has a bunch more fun things like tv-syncing, or FFT (if you have the required expansion, which i dont). that said, i never used any of that for my 8bit repairing :)

i wasnt referring to DSOs before though, but bog standard simple scopes that have timebase/vertical divisor knobs, 2 or 3 trigger modes and not much else. those are not only good enough for pretty much everything you want to do when playing around with this old 8bit stuff - they are also very easy to use even without looking into any manuals. cant say the same for that philips scope :)
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eslapion
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by eslapion »

groepaz wrote:i wasnt referring to DSOs before though, but bog standard simple scopes that have timebase/vertical divisor knobs, 2 or 3 trigger modes and not much else. those are not only good enough for pretty much everything you want to do when playing around with this old 8bit stuff - they are also very easy to use even without looking into any manuals. cant say the same for that philips scope :)
I was quite happy my TDS-1002 has a video scanline trigger when capturing the signal coming from the 6560. Old "bog standard simple scopes" don't have such a feature.

There's a couple of other advanced function for the trigger that were incredibly useful on the TDS-1002 when developing PLAnkton. These function made it very simple and easy to get the exact information I needed and they just don't exist on an old scope.

IMHO, a modern device, whether it's a complete scope or just like the Hantek, a USB box, is a LOT more useful to a beginner than a piece of antiquated equipment more fit for a museum.

Even the TDS-1002, I am seriously considering replacing with a more modern 4 channel device with improved performances.

Newer equipment offers so much more for your money.
Last edited by eslapion on Fri Dec 09, 2016 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Schema
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by Schema »

We have a couple of these at work. They're (relatively) inexpensive and pretty handy. In addition, since the display is on a PC already, it's easy to do captures of the waveforms or logs etc.

https://www.linkinstruments.com/mso28.html
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by groepaz »

IMHO, a modern device, whether it's a complete scope or just like the Hantek, a USB box, is a LOT more useful to a beginner than a piece of antiquated equipment more fit for a museum.
i'm not sure i agree with that - all the advanced stuff doesn't mean anything to a beginner in the first place, and he wont use it anytime soon either. it's a bit like saying a guitar novice should get a les paul, because it sounds so much better than some cheap taiwanese clone - while being generally correct, it doesn't make a difference for the beginner for a long time.
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

eslapion wrote:
groepaz wrote:pfff autoset. what kind of wussies need that? =) (and yes, my 30yr old philips can do it too)
I suppose your Philips can also capture a single pulse and show you what occurred BEFORE the trigger too ?
That's what the delay line is for. Hey, you didn't say how much before the trigger you wanted to see!
eslapion wrote: Your Philips has a "PRINT SCREEN" button too ?
Bah, print screen is for the weak.

Now, "develop screen", THAT's fun!

Image
eslapion wrote: I was quite happy my TDS-1002 has a video scanline trigger when capturing the signal coming from the 6560. Old "bog standard simple scopes" don't have such a feature.
That's what a LM1881 is for!

:wink:
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eslapion
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by eslapion »

groepaz wrote:i'm not sure i agree with that - all the advanced stuff doesn't mean anything to a beginner in the first place, and he wont use it anytime soon either. it's a bit like saying a guitar novice should get a les paul, because it sounds so much better than some cheap taiwanese clone - while being generally correct, it doesn't make a difference for the beginner for a long time.
I truly disagree with your analogy.

A digital HD television is far more sophisticated than an old 1980s era analog CRT TV. The HD set is far easier to use, costs less and provides much better image quality by simply plugging in a few cables.

Newer PCs which use windows XP-7-10 are much more versatile, cheaper and easier to use than DOS era machines and are also much more powerful.

Don't get me wrong, it's fine to be nostalgic every once in awhile but when you're familiar with newer, inexpensive digital scopes and use them frequently, you tend to find old analog scopes just cumbersome.
Gyro Gearloose wrote:That's what a LM1881 is for!
Groepaz seems interested, you should offer him.
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Re: Need advice on Oscilloscope probes

Post by groepaz »

Don't get me wrong, it's fine to be nostalgic every once in awhile but when you're familiar with newer, inexpensive digital scopes and use them frequently, you tend to find old analog scopes just cumbersome.
sure you do - because you are doing non beginner stuff with it.
Groepaz seems interested, you should offer him.
you should have read what i wrote before - i never used any of those fancy things for my 8bit shit. if i didnt get this philips scope for free, i'd be perfectly happy with a good old hameg 20mhz 2chan - it can do everything i'd need, and its by far more intuitive to use. (and it can do X/Y - which the philips can not, unfortunately)
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