ANALOG ADVENTURES

I obtained my first oscilloscope as a going-away gift from one of my nerdy friends after my freshman year in high school, as I prepared to leave Silicon Valley for “Surf City.” (Actually, all my friends were pretty nerdy. –EN) It was a rather decrepit Eico oscilloscope and, though relatively worthless as a genuine test instrument, it was a great deal of fun making squiggly lines and Lissajous patterns and the like. I got a particular thrill out of wobbling the trace around with a magnet; as I’ve suggested before, I’ve always been easily entertained. If I’d been a YL, I would have been deemed a really cheap date, I suppose.

Nowadays, there are analog oscilloscopes. In a subsequent article, we will discuss a few instances in which a digital ‘scope just won’t cut the mustard, so you really won’t regret having harbored your old blue-gray Tektronix beast and its shopping-cart sized dolly in your tool shed since 1957.