Going too cheap on a 'scope might be regretted. Buying too recent a low-end instrument might be a disappointment as well. A 20-year-old 465 in really decent functional condition and with al its parts and manuals can be had nearly any day from a retailer of such hardware for $400, including a pair of 100 MHz probes with most of their accessories, and often for less than that. It (including the somewhat less well-suited 'B' version) will do ANYTHING you need on most classic hardware. Knowing that, by itself, is worth quite a bit, because you KNOW when you power it up, it will do what you need. What might be even more interesting is the more or less equivalent TEK 466, which is a storage scope. That will let you do even more than the 465 and, when you can find one, won't cost much more. A current-generation low-end analog 'scope will not begin to do what a 20-25-year-old one will do, because 25 years ago, the 20 MHz scope was the typical workhorse. If you look at today's, it's a toy. If you find a used TEK 935 (?) which was considered a "student" instrument for use in schools, etc, it's all solid-state, which means you don't have to use up $5 in power to warm it up, and spend $5 more for a six-pack to drink while you wait, and, though it hasn't got the high bandwidth, it has the delayed timebase, and two channels triggerable either externally or internally, etc. You shouldn't have to pay even $200 for one of these, complete with the two probes, which, by the way, are probably over half the cost. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 7:47 PM Subject: Re: Oscilloscopes to Again, I we boxes.