Laptop computer for oscillscope and function generator

laptop function generator

How can i use my laptop PC windows VISA computer to be like a oscilloscope? or Logic analyzer or spectrum analyzer?


Where can i get free wavefiles that sweep frequencys? different wavefile duty cycles to adjust ?

Free software function generator for computers?

Instead of buying a pricey arbitrary function generator that has noise wavefiles? RF wavefiles? modulation wavefiles? TV signal wavefiles? Video signal wavefiles?

Or just free software programs that have TV and video RGB signals?

Then i can use my laptop as a arbitrary function generator by using the audio output

If you are using simulated signals on the computer then you can use software such as Matlab and LabView. Most of the free software have limited functionality.
If you are to acquire external signals you need a data acquisition card which usually comes with the software you require.

I would expect that most of the functionality you suggest for signal gneration and acquisition with a sound card is already present in software from GNU and open source community. E. g. I know that free sound recording and processing software exists, it probably could do a lot of these things. Also octave as a free Matlab replacement can basically achieve all kinds of signal processing, I guess there should be an interface from octave files to sound card drivers or sound processing software.

Higher frequency signal generation and acquisition requires special hardware. I know of commercial USB adapters, also hobby circuits most likely can be found at the internet. If it doesn't exist and you can give a meaningful specification, you can find other guys at EDAboard that are motivated to make a project design.

If your PC have not installed any instrumentation card, you can use just the soundcard.

A very powerful and commonly used program is Virtins Sound Card MultiInstrument (you can download it at p2p networks). It can be used as function generator, oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer and more (in audio band, of course).

If you need to work at higher frequencies, a cheap solution is to purchase a PC-bases USB oscilloscope (I have this one **broken link removed**,
and it works fine). It has a spectrum analyzer and can be programmed with an API.

I hope this help you. Regards.

A powerful tool to verify audio quality using the sound-card line in as input is Rightmark audio analyzer.
You can download it for free from the link below
https://audio.rightmark.org/index_new.shtml

Regards
Mowgli