palm tx oscilloscope
**broken link removed**
What is the Palm Oscilloscope
The Palm Oscilloscope project is an attempt to use a Palm PDA as an oscilloscope. The portability and availability of Palm PDAs make them ideal for data acquisition and display applications. Also, because many of the target users already have Palm computers, adding oscilloscope features to a Palm would cost much less than purchasing a complete portable oscilloscope. In this project, a Palm is used to display waveforms that are received through the serial port from a BlackBox. The BlackBox is a device which samples the analog signals and transmits them to the Palm using a specific communications protocol.
Features:
The Palm Oscilloscope has a two part design. The first part is, of course, a Palm-compatible PDA. The PDA is the user interface for the oscilloscope, and displays waveforms that represent the measured signals. The other part of the oscilloscope is a black box, named the BlackBox. The BlackBox is responsible for measuring an analog signal, and transmitting the measurements to the PDA.
In order to maximize the usability of this product, no hardware changes are required of the PDA. All communication is performed through the built in serial port.
The Palm-O-Scope is a small program that runs on a Palm-compatible PDA. It provides the user interface to the Palm Oscilloscope, by scaling and displaying the measured waveforms. These measurements come from the other half of the Palm Oscilloscope, the BlackBox.
The BlackBox is responsible for measuring analog signals and transmitting the results to a PDA. The exact implementation can vary considerably. For the Palm Oscilloscope project, two BlackBoxes have been designed, one of which has been implemented and demonstrated. The BlackBoxes communicate with the host (the PDA) using the BlackBox Protocol. This protocol provides much freedom for the PDA oscilloscope.
Feature Summary
Palm-O-Scope
Runs on any Palm-Compatible PDA with an RS-232 serial port and Palm OS 3.5 or newer.
Dynamically scales any number of samples from the BlackBox to the display, reducing any dependance on a particular model of BlackBox
Can update more than 4 traces per second
BlackBox One
Generates 8-bit samples at 480 Hz
Triggers at 0 V on rising edges
Communicates at 9600 bps using the Simplifed BlackBox Protocol
Obsolete. Intended for demonstration purposes only
BlackBox Two
Generates 8-bit samples at 1.0 MHz
Allows variable trigger voltages, rising edge only
Communicates at 115200 bps using the full BlackBox Protocol
Not implemented yet
BlackBox Protocol
Allows communication between the Palm-O-Scope and any BlackBox
Decouples the user interface from the BlackBox, allowing porting to new PDAs and operating systems
Designed for reliable operation and future expandability
Specifes 16-bit samples for all BlackBoxes. This allows 0.4mV resolution with a +/-15 V reference