Tek 465 as a hobby scope?

> Since this was a HamFest, I'd say you may not have lost as much as you may > think. (This is my opinion, based on my limited and very disappointing > experience with HamFests, which I no longer patronize, so ... consider at

This is the exact opposite of my experience at radio rallies (which is what we call hamfests over here). I have never been disapointed with anything I've bought at a radio rally. I have a couple of rules I follow at such events : Never buy anything if it might be worth a lot less than you paid for it. For example, I never buy chips at hamfests no matter how attractive the price looks because if they are defective I know I can't repair them so I've lost my money. But I would buy an old HP instrument for \pounds 10.00 (even though it's almost certainly faulty at that price) because I can see at least \pounds 10.00 worth of knobs, case parts, connectors, etc. The insides are going to be worth something as well. And most likely the repair is going to be simple (this is how I ended up with an old, but good, HP counter with plug-ins covering DC to 3GHz for very little money [1]) Even with the above rule, never buy anything unless you can afford to lose the money. It's unlikely you will, but... [1] All it needed was new smoothing capacitors in the PSU... [...] I regard all things I buy at rallies as 'fixer-uppers'. I expect it. I've never much money for a single item at a rally, so I don't expect them to work (often though I am pleasantly suprised by what I get -- faults are often quite simple). To be honest, I'd rather have a 'fixer-upper' that was once a first-class instrument (like a Tek 'scope) than a more recent hobbyist-grade unit bought new and working. I'll spend a few days/weeks/months fixing it up (time spent on hobbies is free, after all ;-)) and in the end I'll have something that I could never have afforded any other way. And it'll be pleasant to use, unlike some more recent stuff. In general, the more obscure an item, the more likely it is to be working if sold cheaply at a rally. A good 'scope will not be priced that cheaply in general because just about everyone at a rally knows what a 'scope is, and wants one. And they know the good makes (like Tek and HP). So a cheap Tek 'scope is likely to need work But something like an in-circuit emulator, or a programmer for some odd chip family, or an obscure classic computer could well be very cheap, even when working. Because almost nobody wants this sort of stuff (unless they're into old computers, I guess :-)) I've picked up a Z80 ICE unit, a logic analyser designed to connect to common 8 bit processors (6800, Z80, 6502 and 6809 IIRC), a PIC 17C4x programmer board (complete with a couple of chips and all the manuals), and a Xerox D-machine for \pounds 10 or less each. All apart from the D-machine were in perfect working order, the last was missing the keyboard, but at that price... -tony