Over the past couple of weeks, it has become painfully obvious that I really need a logic analyser in-house for current and future work.

There are several USB-based analysers available for use with a PC. So today I ordered an Intronix unit, plus four sets of coloured clips from Digikey to go with it. I'll have to run the Windows GUI inside VMware, but that's okay (gotta love USB!).

It won out over the Tech-Tools similar model because of the 2ns sampling rate (vs. 10ns) and widely adjustable trigger levels. Both products allow download of the actual software with preloaded demo samples to try before you buy. An excellent way to do it, and great fun besides!

There was also a fancier model from BitScope with a Linux GUI and digital scope capabilities, but the digital sample rate was too low for my liking.

And let us not forget the nifty (and much cheaper!) Ant8/Ant16, but I didn't like their probes as much, and the input impedence was a tad low.

Related to this stuff, I also looked at cheap Digital Storage Scopes (logic analysers display 1-bit high/low values, whereas digital scopes record a broader range of input values on an 8-12 bit scale, to show analog waveforms and noise etc..). The Wittig self-contained model looks cute, and the Swordfish (US$199 here) comes across as a fairly useful tool, though low in bandwidth.

I've posted these links here, in case anyone else might someday want a starting point for researching them.

Cheers