Stopped by an old repair shop in Detroit last weekend

The guy still uses a CRT oscilloscope from the 80s to diagnose logic boards. Said he's never had to replace a single part on it in 25 years. Anyone else still rocking old gear that just won't die?

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2 Comments

the_susan3mo ago

Hold on, oscilloscopes don't fix logic boards solo, they just display signals for diagnosing them.

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the_jake3mo ago

And that's exactly the point I've had to explain to people a few times. You can stare at a waveform all day but if you don't know what the chip is supposed to be doing, you're just looking at squiggly lines. The real trick is having a logic analyzer next to it so you can compare the data lines to the clock signal. That's how you spot a stuck address line or a bad latch. Oscilloscope gets you in the ballpark, but you still need to do the legwork to find the actual fault.

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