Specifications

6
What Is an Oscilloscope and Why Do You Need One? (continued)
What an oscilloscope looks like
What an oscilloscope looks like
In general, modern digitizing
oscilloscopes look similar to the
one seen in Figure 8. However,
there are a wide variety of
oscilloscope types, and yours
may look very different. Despite
this, there are some basic
features that most oscilloscopes
have. The front panel of most
oscilloscopes can be divided
into several basic sections: the
channel inputs, the display, the
horizontal controls, the vertical
controls, and the trigger controls.
If your oscilloscope does not have
a Microsoft® Windows®-based
operating system, it will probably
have a set of softkeys to control
on-screen menus.
You send your signals into the
oscilloscope via the channel
inputs, which are connectors
for plugging in your probes. The
display is simply the screen
where these signals are displayed.
The horizontal and vertical
control sections have knobs
and buttons that control the
horizontal axis (which typically
represents time) and vertical axis
(which represents voltage) of the
signals on the screen display.
The trigger controls allow you to
tell the oscilloscope under what
conditions you want the timebase
to start a sweep.
Figure 9. Rear panel on the Agilent
Infiniium 8000 Series oscilloscope
An example of what the back
panel of an oscilloscope looks like
is seen in Figure 9.
As you can see, many
oscilloscopes have the
connectivity features found on
personal computers. Examples
include CD-ROM drives, CD-RW
drives, DVD-RW drives, USB
ports, serial ports, and external
monitor, mouse, and keyboard
inputs.
Display
Softkeys
Horizontal control section
Channel inputs
Vertical
control
section
Trigger
control
section
Figure 8. Front panel on the Agilent InfiniiVision 5000 Series oscilloscope
Oscilloscope Fundamentals