Recreating Fast Oscilloscopes is a Slow Process

Recreating Fast Oscilloscopes is a Slow Process

If you want to do something you’ve never done before, there are two broadly-defined ways of approaching it: either you learn everything you can about it and try to do it right the first time, or you get in there and get your hands dirty, and work out the details along the way. There’s a lot to be said for living life by the seat of your pants. Just ask anyone who found inspiration in the 11th hour of a deadline, simply because they had no other choice.


Ted Yapo didn’t have a lot of high-speed design knowledge when he set out to build an open-source multi-GHz sampling oscilloscope, but he didn’t let that stop him. Fast forward a year or so, and Ted’s ready to build his third prototype armed with all the hands-on practical knowledge he’s gained from building the first two.


At the 2019 Hackaday Superconference, Ted gave a talk about his journey into the high-stakes world of high-speed design. It’s an inspiring talk, and Ted gives a good look into everything he’s learned in trying to build a sampling ‘scope. We think you’ll appreciate not only Ted’s work, but also the ease with which he explains it all.

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So why is Ted doing all of this? For one thing, his 1989 Tektronix has been trucking along for 75,000+ hours, and it won’t last forever. The bigger problem is that this is one of the last digital scopes to use equivalent-time sampling, because manufacturers jumped to real-time sampling within a few years. Ted sees the opportunity to duplicate this with modern technology, and we are over here nodding vi ..

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