aVd wrote on 2026-05-28, 07:53:

Sorry, that I offended you with my silly questions. I'm not here for this.

Your questions warn't "silly" - I'm just sensitive to people not reading my docs (see my last post).

I am happy to help clarify details you might not understand - but please RTFM firdst - don't assume the docs are useless!

... (yes, I can't spent a ton of money on some professional oscilloscope just for my retro PC hobby). I can't use oscilloscope at home ...

Weirdly - despite being officially a "software guy" ... I build lots of specialized hardware - mostly using various "embedded processors" ...
Looks like I currently have 6 scopes here... (and I've been trying to downsize since I retired - all of the big "needs a cart" boat-anchor scopes have gone to better homes)

If you do want to look for a good/cheap home scope, I can make some recommendations (although many of mine are older and I don't know if you can still buy then)
You might find the latest one I got interesting - Tiny, 2-channel - $50 :; Re: oscilloscopes

I had one of those Chineese DSO-138 and it is useless for PC repairs - if I'm not mistaken, its maximum bandwidth was in kHz range. I used it before for some audio equipment repairs, but I don't know where the damn thing has gone. The last time I needed to use it, I couldn't find it among my tools at home (I can't recall if I lent it to a friend who forgot to give it me back, but it's not a loss, since this thing was mostly useless to me).

I'm really tempted to buy a brand new, better digital oscilloscope with a bandwidth of at least 200 MHz, but these are not cheap at all. And I'm not sure if it's worth spending even 50 bucks on such a device with 10MHz limit, which I use very rarely (once in a yea or two). Actually I like more the old analog oscilloscopes, but even used ones are too expensive for occasional home usage.

aVd wrote on 2026-05-28, 11:48:

I had one of those Chineese DSO-138 and it is useless for PC repairs - if I'm not mistaken, its maximum bandwidth was in kHz range. ...

Yep ... I bought one "on a whim" just to see what a $20 scope would be like. It is rated at 200khz ... ok for audio but not much else.

The scope I use most is a Tektronix TDS-210 - 2 channel 60mhz.

For almost everything I do that's lots fast. I had a 400mhz "boat anker" which took a cart to move - I let it go and haven't missed it at all.

Unless you're working on a core processor - or something else that's really new ... you don't need fast.
The little one I mentioned is 10mhz .. and I find that's lots for almost everything I want "super portable" for.
(and even a scope that's barely fast enough to see detail - is much netter than "no scope");.

Since we've been talking about floppy disks - keep in mind that depending on drive type type, the transfer rate is 250, 300 or 500kbps

Obviously you'll need faster than that to actually see transitions properly, but IMHO 10mhz (20x+) would be more than adequate.

I've had lots of analog scopes over the years, but I find I really prefer a DSO these days. I really like storage and analog storage scopes are a major PITA (IMO).

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-05-27, 19:45:

... taking up Vogons bandwidth and server space ...

Since this got quoted back to me - I wanted to explain the statement in more detail - I just "forgot" earlier - not trying to restart any of this discussion...

It was probably a poor way to phrase.. I'm not actually worried about bandwidth and these messages are an insignificant amount of server space in the "great Vogons universe".

But... this whole thread had diverted from the stated purpose of this forum "Very Old Games On New Systems"

Given my vision/dexterity issues of late (getting old really does "suck" but it still beats the alternative) - I'm not able to game very much anymore... But I do like that many participants are of an older generation (good luck getting "young pups" interested in classic "not on your phone" games!) and given that there's a fair bit of VOSSR (Very Old Systems - Still Running) which is a subject I still do/appreciate - I do sometimes "wander off".

ImageDisk is kinda a special case - It has nothing to do with games (old or new) directly - but it is a tool commonly used to read/recover old media which is how many "Very Old Games" were originally distributed. So, I think it has some relevance here... but... we were getting a bit further from just "recovery".

I very much enjoy talking about old systems and technically related subjects, but I do try not to let it go "too far" (which is really hard sometimes - especially given how many Vogons participants seem to have similar interests)

so... I guess what I really should have said is "too much server bandwidth and storage taken up by an ongoing off-topic discussion" - hope this clairifies a bit!

HI @DaveDDS, I've used IMD and your other tools, and they are very good. Your documentation is as well. I wish you good health, as you are doing a great work.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2026-05-29, 19:17:

HI @DaveDDS, I've used IMD and your other tools, and they are very good. Your documentation is as well. I wish you good health, as you are doing a great work.

Thanks! - it's always good to hear when people: make use of, benefit from and appreciate things I've done over the years!