Big Mess o’ Wires

My Hewlett-Packard 1631D logic analyzer / digital oscilloscope arrived today: the finest 1985 technology that $35 can buy. I bought it dirt cheap from eBay in “as is” condition, but it seems to be working great! With this acquisition, I can proudly say that I’ve crossed the line from ordinary run-of-the-mill nerd to super-nerd.

Holy cow, there are a lot of buttons and wires on this thing. What’s a trigger? Where’s the manual? My head hurts just thinking about it.

After some time spent jabbing hesitantly at buttons, I finally managed to get a scope trace working. Here it is, showing the output of a 1 MHz clock oscillator. Mmmm, square wavy goodness!