usb oscilloscopes for pc

[arnoldemu]

Are these usb oscilloscopes for pc any good? I have seen one for about £40.
It's essentially a box that plugs into the pc using a usb cable. Out of the box are the probe cables.
Any good for checking things? I want to use it to look at some timings on the cpc and other hardware I have.

[steve]

There are many videos on youtube about oscilloscopes including usb ones.

[Bryce]

I wouldn't recommend them for serious work, especially high-frequency real-time measurements. But if it's just 1Mhz z80 signals you're looking to measure then it should do the job (assuming the bandwidth is sufficient). On the other hand, if it's mainly for logic timing etc, then I'd suggest you either get a USB logic analyser or a USB oscilloscope with logic analyser functionality, much more useful for such work.

Personally, I prefer using a real oscilloscope, but they're not 40€

Bryce.

Note on Bandwidth: To be any way useful, the bandwidth of the scope should be at least 10 times the frequency being measured. So if your signal being measured is 1Mhz, you should be looking at getting a scope with at least 10Mhz bandwidth at minimum.