19 ms·

Only problem is that an oscilloscope isn't accessible to beginners. It's a specialist piece of equipment that takes time to learn how to use, and are furiously

by 6SixTy 2y ago

Only problem is that an oscilloscope isn't accessible to beginners. It's a specialist piece of equipment that takes time to learn how to use, and are furiously expensive at best for someone who doesn't know they might like electronics to buy. That's fundamentally why people are lauding the benefits of microcontrollers, figuring out what's wrong with one doesn't require an O-scope.

nuancebydefault 2y ago
Indeed. An intuitive, easy to use oscilloscope needs at least to be digital and hence expensive. An alternative is using an electronics workbench simulator, but then again you might as well go fully digital. When circuits become larger than trivial, the analog way is noise and temperature sensitive, you will spend a lot of time on tweaking those aspects by themselves.
II2II 2y ago
That really depends upon the context. Many learn electronics in a classroom environment. Even for those who learn electronics independently, it has been possible to get new oscilloscopes that work at audio frequencies for well under $100 for many years. It looks like scopes that operate upto 20 MHz have been available for under $100 for a couple of years. They aren't great, but they are still powerful tools for learning. And while scopes do take time to learn, learning about scopes themselves will convey a lot of fundamental information about electronics. I also wouldn't underestimate the difficulty in learning how to use microcontrollers. While using something like Arduino (boards, shields, development tools, and libraries) may be straight forward, the learning curve rises steeply as soon as you try to do anything truly independently. More steeply, I would suggest, than learning how to use an osilloscope. Besides, most of those development boards cost a lot more than a bare chip.

19 ms·

Only problem is that an oscilloscope isn't accessible to beginners. It's a specialist piece of equipment that takes time to learn how to use, and are furiously

by 6SixTy 2y ago

nuancebydefault 2y ago
Indeed. An intuitive, easy to use oscilloscope needs at least to be digital and hence expensive. An alternative is using an electronics workbench simulator, but then again you might as well go fully digital. When circuits become larger than trivial, the analog way is noise and temperature sensitive, you will spend a lot of time on tweaking those aspects by themselves.
II2II 2y ago
That really depends upon the context. Many learn electronics in a classroom environment. Even for those who learn electronics independently, it has been possible to get new oscilloscopes that work at audio frequencies for well under $100 for many years. It looks like scopes that operate upto 20 MHz have been available for under $100 for a couple of years. They aren't great, but they are still powerful tools for learning. And while scopes do take time to learn, learning about scopes themselves will convey a lot of fundamental information about electronics. I also wouldn't underestimate the difficulty in learning how to use microcontrollers. While using something like Arduino (boards, shields, development tools, and libraries) may be straight forward, the learning curve rises steeply as soon as you try to do anything truly independently. More steeply, I would suggest, than learning how to use an osilloscope. Besides, most of those development boards cost a lot more than a bare chip.